Chapter 4: The Use of Empty Space: Rest as Part of the Work

A Calendar Without Gaps

Elias is thirty-four and works as an architect in a small firm that designs schools and libraries. He is talented and ambitious, and he has a habit that his colleagues find impressive: he fills every minute of his working day. His calendar is a solid block of meetings, design sessions and site visits from eight in the morning until seven in the evening. He eats lunch at his desk while working. He takes calls while walking between meetings. He prides himself on never wasting time.

Lately, Elias has noticed a problem. His designs, which used to be fresh and inventive, have become routine. He finds it hard to have new ideas. In meetings, he makes decisions quickly but sometimes badly, and later has to change them. He feels as though his mind is a glass of muddy water, constantly shaken, never still long enough for anything to become clear.

Elias has also noticed changes outside work. He is short-tempered with his partner in the evenings. He finds it hard to fall asleep, because his mind keeps running through the next day's meetings. On weekends, he feels restless and slightly guilty whenever he is not doing something useful. He tells himself that this is simply what a serious career requires. But part of him wonders whether he has confused being busy with being good at his work.

The breakthrough came by accident. One afternoon, a meeting was cancelled at the last minute, leaving Elias with an unexpected hour of nothing. He did not know what to do. Out of habit, he reached for his phone, but the battery was dead. So he walked to a small park near the office and sat on a bench, watching the trees move in the wind. For the first twenty minutes, he felt restless and guilty. Then, slowly, his mind began to settle.

He noticed small things he had walked past every day for years: an old woman feeding pigeons, a child learning to ride a bicycle, the way the light changed as a cloud crossed the sun.

Near the end of the hour, an idea arrived, fully formed, for a problem he had been struggling with for weeks: how to bring natural light into the centre of a large school building. He had been trying to force a solution for days. Now, in an hour of doing nothing, the solution had simply appeared. He hurried back to the office and sketched it. It became the heart of one of his best designs.

Elias was puzzled. How could an hour of doing nothing have produced more than days of hard work? The Daodejing offers an answer, in one of its most famous images: the usefulness of empty space.

Thirty Spokes and One Hub

In chapter 11 of the Daodejing, there is a passage made of three simple pictures. In my own words: thirty spokes meet at the hub of a wheel, but it is the empty space at the centre that makes the cart useful. Clay is shaped into a pot, but it is the empty space inside that makes the pot useful. Doors and windows are cut into the walls of a room, but it is the empty space that makes the room useful. So, the passage concludes, what is there gives us benefit, but what is not there gives us use (Daodejing, chapter 11).

Think about each picture. A wheel needs spokes and a rim, which are solid and visible. But without the empty hole at the centre, where the axle passes through, the wheel could not turn, and the cart could not move. A pot needs clay walls. But if the pot were solid clay all the way through, it could hold nothing. A room needs walls. But without the empty space inside, and the openings of doors and windows, nobody could live in it or see out of it.

In each case, the empty space is not a lack or a waste. It is essential. It is what makes the solid parts useful. We tend to notice and value the solid parts, the spokes, the clay, the walls, because they are visible and we made them. We tend to overlook the empty spaces, because there seems to be nothing there. But without the emptiness, the solid parts would be useless.

This image applies with great force to the way many of us live and work. We value the solid parts of our days: the tasks, meetings, accomplishments and visible effort. We overlook, or even resent, the empty parts: the pauses, the rest, the time when nothing seems to be happening. We try to fill every gap with activity, as Elias filled his calendar. But a day with no empty space is like a pot with no hollow inside. It can hold nothing new.

Elias's hour in the park was like the hollow in the pot. Because it was empty of tasks, it could hold something else: a new idea, a moment of rest, a clearer mind. His solid hours of work had prepared the ground. But it was the empty hour that made them useful, by giving his mind the space to bring together what it had learned.

Muddy Water and Stillness

In chapter 15 of the Daodejing, there is a question that speaks directly to busy, crowded minds. In my own words: who can make muddy water clear? Let it be still, and it will slowly become clear. Who can bring what is still to life? Let it move, and it will slowly come alive (Daodejing, chapter 15).

Imagine a glass of water with mud in it. If you keep stirring it, the water stays cloudy. If you try to clean it by stirring harder, it only becomes cloudier. But if you set the glass down and leave it alone, the mud slowly sinks to the bottom, and the water becomes clear. You do not need to do anything to make it clear. You only need to stop stirring.

Our minds are often like that glass. Constant activity, constant information, constant decisions keep them stirred up and cloudy. We try to think more clearly by thinking harder, which only stirs the water more. But if we stop, even briefly, and let the mind be still, the confusion slowly settles, and clarity returns. This is what happened to Elias on the park bench. The first twenty minutes were restless, as the water was still swirling. Then the mud began to settle, and the idea became visible.

Notice that the passage has two halves. The second half reminds us that stillness is not the whole story. What is still must also be brought to life by movement. The Daodejing does not recommend endless stillness any more than endless activity. It recommends a rhythm: stillness that allows clarity, followed by movement that allows life. Rest and work, in the right proportion, each making the other possible.

Chapter 16 of the Daodejing deepens this idea. In one common reading, it speaks of reaching the deepest emptiness and holding fast to stillness. It observes that all things rise up and then return to their root, and that this return to the root is stillness (Daodejing, chapter 16). Like plants that grow in summer and return to their roots in winter, human beings need times of return: rest, quiet, sleep, stillness. These are not interruptions of life. They are part of its natural rhythm.

Rehana and the Five Minutes at the Terminus

Rehana is forty and drives a city bus. Her shifts are long and demanding: heavy traffic, crowded buses, passengers with questions and complaints, the constant need to be alert. At the end of each route, she has a short break at the terminus, usually five or ten minutes, before starting the route again in the other direction.

For years, Rehana used these breaks to check her phone. She read messages, scrolled through news and looked at social media. It felt like a break. But she noticed that she often started the next route feeling just as tired and tense as before, sometimes more so. The news made her anxious. The messages reminded her of things she needed to do at home.

A colleague who had been driving for twenty years told her about a different way of using the breaks. "I do nothing," he said. "I get off the bus, stand in the air, look at the sky and breathe. Five minutes of nothing. It is the only thing that gets me through the day." Rehana tried it. At first, it felt strange and empty. But she found that after five minutes of genuine nothing, she began the next route calmer and more alert.

Rehana realized that her phone breaks had not really been empty. They had been filled with more information, more stimulation and more small demands, like a pot packed with clay. The real breaks, with nothing in them, were like the hollow of the pot. They held something her phone breaks never had: actual rest. Her driving improved, and so did her mood at the end of the day.

It is worth noticing how short Rehana's empty spaces are. She does not have hours of free time during her shifts. She has five or ten minutes. But even short periods of genuine emptiness, repeated through the day, can make a large difference. The hub of a wheel is small compared with the whole wheel. Yet it is what lets the wheel turn.

Rehana's colleagues noticed the change too. Several of them began to join her outside the bus for a few quiet minutes at the terminus. Nobody talked much. They stood in the air together, looked at the sky and then went back to their routes. Rehana says that these shared silences became one of the best parts of her working day, a small community of rest in the middle of a demanding job.

Theo and the Week With No Free Afternoon

Theo is fifteen. His week is fully scheduled. On Mondays, he has football practice. On Tuesdays, a piano lesson. On Wednesdays, extra mathematics tutoring. On Thursdays, swimming. On Fridays, a coding club. On Saturdays, a football match in the morning and homework in the afternoon. On Sundays, family visits and more homework. His parents want him to have every opportunity, and Theo has never complained.

But his parents noticed that Theo had become irritable and tired. He was sleeping badly. His school reports said he seemed distracted. When his mother asked him what he would most like to do, he thought for a long time and then said, "I would like to do nothing. Just one afternoon where nobody tells me what to do."

Theo's parents talked about this. They realized that, in trying to give their son every opportunity, they had left no empty space in his life. There was no time for him to rest, to daydream, to follow his own interests or simply to be bored. Every hour was a spoke. There was no hub.

They decided to drop one activity and to keep one afternoon a week completely free. Theo chose to drop the coding club. On his free afternoon, he did nothing in particular at first. He lay on his bed, read comics, wandered around the neighbourhood. After a few weeks, he began to use the time to draw, which he had not done since he was small. He discovered that he loved it. His sleep improved, and his teachers reported that he seemed more focused.

Young people today often have very full schedules, sometimes as full as those of busy adults. Theo's story suggests that they, too, need empty space: time without structure, without goals and without someone else's plan. In that empty space, as in the hollow of a pot, they can discover what they themselves want to fill it with.

Theo's parents also noticed something about themselves. They had filled their son's week partly because they were afraid that empty time would be wasted, and that he would fall behind other children. Seeing how much he grew in his free afternoon helped them question that fear. They began, a little at a time, to leave some empty space in their own weeks as well. The whole family, it turned out, had been living without a hub. If a young person seems persistently tired, low or withdrawn, it is worth talking with them gently and, if concerns continue, with a doctor or another qualified professional.

Agathe and the Hours That Were Hers

Agathe is seventy and cares for her husband, who has a form of memory loss that has grown worse over the past three years. He needs help with almost everything: dressing, eating, finding his way around the house. He sometimes becomes confused and upset in the night. Agathe loves him deeply and is determined to care for him at home. But she has had almost no time to herself for two years.

Agathe's daughter, who lives some distance away, became worried when she visited and saw how exhausted her mother looked. Agathe had lost weight, was sleeping badly and had stopped seeing her friends. She said she could not leave her husband, even for an hour, because nobody else could care for him properly. She felt that taking time for herself would be selfish.

Agathe's daughter helped her find a local service that provided a trained care worker to stay with her husband for four hours twice a week. Agathe was reluctant at first. But her daughter reminded her of something her own mother used to say: "You cannot pour from an empty jug." If Agathe exhausted herself completely, she would not be able to care for her husband at all.

The first time the care worker came, Agathe did not know what to do with herself. She walked to the shops and back, feeling guilty and anxious. The second time, she met an old friend for coffee and talked for two hours. The third time, she sat in the library and read a novel. Slowly, she began to look forward to these hours. They were the empty space in her week, the hollow in the pot, the hub of the wheel. They did not reduce her love for her husband. They made it possible for her to keep caring for him.

Caring for a family member with a serious illness is one of the hardest forms of work there is, and it is often invisible and unpaid. People who do it often feel that they have no right to rest. But rest is not a betrayal of the person cared for. It is part of what makes long-term care possible. If you are a carer, it may help to find out what support services are available where you live, and to talk with a doctor about your own health. Many carers find that even short, regular breaks make a large difference.

Practical Steps: Making Room for Emptiness

The first step is to notice where you have no empty space. Look at your days and weeks. Are there any times with nothing scheduled, nothing to do, nothing to read or watch? If not, your life may be like a pot with no hollow. Notice this without judging yourself.

The second step is to create small empty spaces. Like Rehana at the bus terminus, look for short moments in your day that you can leave genuinely empty: five minutes between tasks, the walk from one place to another, the time while the kettle boils. In these moments, do nothing. Do not check your phone, read or plan. Look around, breathe and let your mind settle.

The third step is to protect a larger empty space each week. Like Theo's free afternoon or Agathe's four hours, choose one block of time each week that is not filled with tasks or obligations. What you do with it is up to you, including doing nothing at all. The important thing is that it is not planned in advance.

The fourth step is to let the muddy water settle. When you are confused, stuck or overwhelmed, try stopping instead of pushing harder. Step away from the problem, sit still or take a walk. Like Elias on the park bench, give your mind time to become clear. The solution may come by itself, as the mud sinks.

The fifth step is to distinguish real emptiness from false breaks. Breaks filled with phone scrolling, news, messages or other stimulation may feel like rest, but often they are not. They stir the water rather than letting it settle. Real empty space is quiet and unfilled. Notice the difference in how you feel after each kind of break.

The sixth step is to honour sleep. Sleep is the deepest empty space of all, the nightly return to the root that the Daodejing describes. Give it enough time, and protect it from the demands of work and screens. If you struggle with sleep for a long time, it is wise to talk to a doctor or another qualified professional.

Rest Is Not Laziness

People who try too hard often feel that rest is a form of laziness, and that time without activity is time wasted. The Daodejing's image of the wheel, the pot and the room offers a different view. The empty space is not a waste. It is what makes the solid parts useful. Rest is not the opposite of work. It is part of what makes work possible and good.

This is not only a philosophical idea. Many people, in many kinds of work, have noticed that their best ideas, clearest decisions and most patient moments come after rest, not after hours of unbroken effort. Elias's solution came on a park bench. Rehana's driving improved after five minutes of nothing. Theo's focus improved after an afternoon of freedom. These experiences are common, even if they are hard to measure.

There is also a simple practical reason why rest helps. A tired person makes more mistakes, takes longer to finish tasks and finds it harder to deal with other people kindly. Time spent resting is often recovered several times over in work done more quickly and more accurately afterwards. People who try too hard sometimes believe that rest is a luxury they cannot afford. In many cases, it is the opposite: exhaustion is the luxury they cannot afford.

At the same time, the Daodejing does not recommend endless emptiness. A pot that is all hollow and no clay would be nothing at all. A wheel that is all hub and no spokes could not turn. The point is balance: solid parts and empty parts, work and rest, activity and stillness, each giving the other its use.

Finally, some people find rest very difficult, even when they have the time for it. When they stop, they feel anxious, guilty or restless, and they quickly fill the space again. If this is your experience, be patient. It often takes time to learn to rest, especially after years of constant activity. Start with very short empty spaces and let them grow slowly. If the restlessness or anxiety is strong and does not ease, it may help to talk with a doctor or another qualified professional.

A Short Exercise: The Wheel of Your Day

This exercise uses the Daodejing's image of the wheel to help you see and create empty space in your days. It takes about fifteen minutes.

Take a page and draw a large circle, like a wheel. Draw a small circle in the centre for the hub. Then draw spokes from the hub to the rim. On each spoke, write one of the main activities of an ordinary day: work, travel, cooking, caring for others, messages, household tasks and so on.

Now look at the hub, the small circle in the centre. Inside it, write any times in your day that are genuinely empty: times with nothing to do, nothing to read, nothing to plan. If the hub is empty of entries, that means your day has no true empty space. Many people find this.

Choose two or three small moments in your day that could become part of the hub. They might be five minutes after lunch, the walk to the bus stop or the first ten minutes after you arrive home. Write them in the hub. Over the next week, try to leave these moments genuinely empty. Do nothing in them except breathe, look and let your mind settle.

At the end of the week, notice how you feel. Did the empty moments change anything: your energy, your mood, your clarity? Did any ideas arrive, as Elias's did? Add to the hub if you wish. When Elias did this exercise, his wheel had fourteen spokes and an empty hub. He wrote three moments into the hub: ten minutes in the park after lunch, the walk from the station to the office and fifteen minutes before bed without a screen. A month later, he said that the park bench had become the most productive ten minutes of his day.

Chapter Summary

In chapter 11, the Daodejing observes that the empty space at the hub of a wheel, inside a pot and within a room is what makes them useful: what is there gives benefit, but what is not there gives use. In chapter 15, it asks who can make muddy water clear, and answers: let it be still, and it will slowly become clear; then let it move, and it will slowly come alive. Chapter 16 speaks of returning to the root, which is stillness, as part of the natural rhythm of all things.

Elias and his calendar without gaps, Rehana at the bus terminus, Theo with his fully scheduled week and Agathe caring for her husband all found that empty space, real rest without hidden demands, is not wasted time but part of what makes work, care and life possible. Rest is not laziness. Balance between solid parts and empty parts is the aim, and difficulties with rest or sleep that last a long time deserve professional advice.

In the next chapter, we will look at another of the Daodejing's great images, which shows a kind of strength that tired people often forget: the soft strength of water.