The Nap Ministry

The only publication I subscribe to is Bon Appetit, which is a lively little Conde Nasty rag which delivers a lot for $2 a month. There is a nest in the staff of radical people of color whose effusions I sometimes enjoy, despite the accusatory hate leveled at filthy white people like me. This week they published a story about the Nap Ministry, an outfit in Georgia, that promotes the nap as necessity, as the source of inspiration, as resistance to Orange Man or Capitalism or Consumerism.

Stripped of its dumb politics, the Nap Ministry is a welcome addition to my Instagram feed, prone as I am to completely wearing myself out. And while I cannot possibly need as much napping as the average black woman, whose burdens seem preposterously high, I do need the reminder.

A hundred years or so ago, Bertrand Russell wrote “In Praise of Idleness” which advances many of the same ideas, riven with the same errant political thought, but ignoring that, Russell points out that rest is not only rest but if you’re looking for inspiration, for guidance, for something to help you transcend and illuminate the meaning of your ordinary life, resting is the way to go.

And then, there’s the Idler, founded in ’93. It is a bi-monthly publication which investigates the glories of loafing. It is great fun, and also has no hectoring. Which is, admit, not restful.

Thanks to hateful capitalism, we are definitely working less. This may be forced upon us, by redundancy, by innovation, by a distaste for corporate control, but more and more of us are living in the gig economy, which delivers quite a bit more leisure than the 9to5 of our grandfathers. People left to their own devices are incredibly innovative in piecing together incomes.

I expect a golden age of lounging in our future and very welcome it will be. Especially to black women.