How Fast Can You Take Your Time?
The Discipline of Do Easy. Plus The Heard
In a recent post on his Subtle Maneuvers, friend of TAoN Mason Currey passed along some “rules for living,” notably from Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson. One bit, from Anderson, was “be loose” — a delightfully vague (I mean “loose”!) suggestion1.
That reminded me of perhaps my favorite bit of “life advice,” which I thought I’d written about here, but apparently not. It comes from the mind of William S. Burroughs, by way of a young Gus van Sant. It is this:
Do Easy.
So what does that mean?
I wish I could remember who first brought it to my attention, but the “Discipline of Do Easy,” spelled out by Burroughs and adapted into a short film by a young van Sant (more on that in this brief Vice writeup from 2011), is summarized like so:
“D.E. simply means doing whatever you do in the easiest most relaxed way you can manage, which is also the quickest and most efficient way, as you will find as you advance in D.E. You can start right now tidying up your flat, moving furniture or books, washing dishes, making tea, sorting papers. Don’t fumble, jerk, grab an object. Drop cool possessive fingers onto it, like a gentle old cop making a soft arrest.”
Van Sant’s nine-minute black and white film plays this out.
At first it all seems almost profoundly vague and confusing — but gradually it starts to make a kind of sense, despite itself. Actually, it now feels to me a bit like a variation on mindfulness. But D.E. is definitely its own thing:
