What’s rotting if all I want is to rest?

Here’s a fun little activity: go to your social media app and search ‘bedrotting’. You’d notice the pessimistic and sad perspectives all those posts have to offer. And bed rotting is not something netizens have randomly discovered. It’s just a much more savvy, sensational term to (drum rolls) resting.

Bedrotting emerged as a Gen Z expression to extended periods of resting and relaxing. It is an act of doing nothing often accompanied by binge watching a series or maybe reading a book or even listening to a song on loop. It is quite often portrayed in a humorous or self depreciating manner. However, reading between the lines, the terminology describes a much deeper issue of self expectations to constantly hustle, surfacing on social media.

The modern world is dominated by productivity imperative based capitalism. Time, every second of it, must be accounted for. An individual should maximise their output and it should be optimized ‘correctly’. “5-am morning routines” “Corporate hustle” “study with me”- all these are content readily available which would shape the idea of resting as a wasteful one.

Rest, in these cases, is allowed only if it adds to the productivity of an individual. To sleep for improving efficiency, meditate to enhance performance or maybe take a break or a vacation so that one’s recharged enough for work. In societies shaped by neo liberal rationalities, individuals treat themselves as entrepreneurial projects, who internalize the demand to perform, constantly. Individuals become master and slave simultaneously. Rest becomes morally coded. One could be judged for resting too long, taking a break for more than set ideas, in such a scenario, becomes questionable.

Capitalising the rest:

If work culture hasn’t been profiting enough, market forces have also captured the area of rest and relaxation. The rise of wellness capitalism is not a new phenomena but a constantly rising one. The commodification of self care and mindfulness is shaped within market logic.

Seeing everyone downloading meditation apps? Everyone all of a sudden buying the prettiest journal? Or spending thousands on skin care? And traveling to meditation based cities? Yup- capitalism made you do that.

Wellness culture, in such a scenario, is not asking the consumers to rest in order to disengage from productivity hustle, but to return as much more competitive selves. The loop is to fuel market forces which pushes you to work and (surprisingly) also asks you to rest. Management of wellness is a task assigned to individuals. And if they still feel ill and/or face burnout (even after following the instructions to rest), then it’s their failure rather than a consequence of structural overwork. Rest is branded as something to achieve rather than something you deserve. This shifts the burden from structural issues in capitalist forces to individuals who are not capable of managing themselves.

The rebellious act of resting:

To rest has always had deep political connection, very direct affiliation to resistance. Feminist scholarship has always advocated for rest in order to grant social respect for the unpaid domestic labour. Worker’s unions have called out unfair industrial setups for their inhumane working hours by the act of resting. To rest is to rebel. And it is still a very significant tool to redraft the hustle culture we find ourselves in.

Rest is a privilege that many don’t have access to. And when the world starts referring to it as an act of rotting, individuals internalize resting or taking a break as something unproductive. Rest becomes more than just social acts of rebellion in a work culture of hyper productivity. It demands a step back from performance culture and allows individuals to reclaim their bodily autonomy.

A human is not made of nuts and bolts. Exhaustion is a humane response to the constantly work oriented social environment. Rest is a natural way to deal with exhaustion. In a world that demands constant optimization, even lying still can feel transgressive.

The break in pattern begins with how we define the act and art of relaxing. To rot is to suffer. To rest is to nurture.