I was somewhat familiar with Tricia Hersey’s work through her The Nap Ministry, and I started reading this and felt a very interesting tension arise: my brain kept expecting lots of information and research and things to do, but Hersey is very clear that is not what the book is about. I found I responded to it much better when I took it in the same spirit as I would a sermon, letting the repetition and the rhythm of her writing call me to a different headspace.
I appreciated Hersey’s constant reminder that we are situated in a system of capitalism and white supremacy that has no use for people beyond the extraction of labor. Her prescription is rest—not to make oneself more productive for the system, but to open up space for something different. That space is dependent on community, in a direct rebuke to the individualism of our system.