Word of the Day: Dreich
Today's word by way of Anita Chaudhuri reflecting on Emma Gannon's new book, 'A Year of Nothing'
adjective
/driːx/
(Scottish English)
depressing, miserable or cold
dreich weather on the Scottish coast
a dreich church service
I decide to try a reset of my own, and plan a mini sabbatical one Sunday. Unfortunately, I soon realise that unless I impose a structure of aimlessness from the start, I’m liable to just loll around doomscrolling. I go back to Gannon, who suggests: “Look at your diary and ask yourself, what can you get out of doing? Find things to cancel. You might be surprised because a lot of the stuff we feel obliged to do, we don’t really need to do at all.”
I find this surprisingly difficult. I don’t like letting people down but I press ahead anyway, although I do justify it because it’s for an article. “Sorry, I can’t make it, I’ve got to work,” I tell a family member, and then a good friend I was looking forward to seeing.
I go for an aimless walk to a park that I rarely visit. It’s a dreich day yet it is surprisingly beautiful. I sit on a bench and watch the world go by, then head home and wonder how on earth I am going to spend the evening.
I do more ironing than I have done for the rest of this year put together, then I go through the laborious process of repotting a snake plant. How can it only be 7pm?
In truth, I go to bed early with the sense that this has all been a massive time-wasting exercise and feeling pretty grumpy. Next morning, though, it’s a different story. For once, I’ve slept soundly all night and have had an unusually vivid dream that has provided the answer to a problem I’ve been grappling with for some time. That morning, I have an idea for a new project. As I go about my day in an uncharacteristically cheerful mood, I realise something I’m sure wise sages have always known: doing nothing much can be surprisingly productive.
| Anita Chaudhuri, The life sabbatical: is doing absolutely nothing the secret of happiness?