Keeping Dusk

I finally finished a book I've been reading intermittently for a while now. It's The Secret World of Doing Nothing by Billy Ehn and Orvar Lofgren, and in it they detail the "inner world" behind activities that evoke nothingness to us on the surface: waiting, routines, and daydreaming.

I had high hopes for the book but am disappointed. Most of the book is a synthesis of research about these non-activities, which is interesting, but the text ventures toward data dumping at times. The activity I am most interested in--daydreaming--got the most coverage in the book, however. And in that third chapter, the authors (both Swedes) introduce a cultural ritual that I was unfamiliar with, what Scandinavians call "keeping dusk"

Here's how Ehn and Lofgren describe it: "After a day of work people sat silently in the approaching darkness [of dusk] and let their thoughts wander freely. After a while, the light was turned on and the magic disappeared. It was one of many special daydreaming situations that still are remembered by older people all over Scandinavia, and some still practice it today" (162-3).

As they further relate, "The tradition of 'keeping dusk' was a way of creating a space of rest between day and evening. The actual lighting of the first candle or lamp turned into a ritual," and "To those who were not used to this kind of meditation the behavior could seem strange. In houses everywhere people sat staring, with the vacant gaze that is typical of daydreaming, at the fireplace, at the window, or out on the veranda" (163).

I'm really intrigued by this cultural practice since it seems to have served as a traditional mass meditation, simply a time for quiet amidst the solitude of inner thoughts. The slow quietness enveloping the room, a certain degree of solemnity surrounding the ritual, thoughts on people's minds playing freely in silence, this is a tradition we Americans might want to appropriate.

No TV, no music, no computer, no interactive clutter--just you and the interplay of duskdreams.