Twenty-Four Steps to the University of Rest

At the Atlantic Corridor, a conversation about active rest became a conversation about hammocks, walking, learning after school, family pressure, sleep, and the strange modern habit of measuring peace.

The Question Was Already Suspicious

The Mayor began with a confession.

He had no idea what active rest meant.

This is sometimes the safest way to begin a Brida conversation. Not with expertise. Not with a definition. Not with a shiny wellness word pretending to be ancient wisdom. Just a Mayor sitting there, slightly surrounded by too many questions, saying: gentlemen, I want to learn from you.

Ismar was asked if he was ready.

“No,” he said.

So, naturally, we continued.

The topic was Rest. More specifically, Active Rest. But very quickly we discovered that the word itself was not simple. For one person, active rest might be a triathlon. For another, it might be lying in a hammock with a book. For another, it might be walking around a park in Bangalore with his wife, checking his steps, talking, changing the environment, and trying not to turn even rest into another target.

This was not a conversation about doing less.

It became a conversation about what we do when we are not officially working, and whether those things really give us back to ourselves.

A Hammock, a Diary, and a Professional Student

Ismar started with a distinction.

An unemployed man may have nothing to do all day, but that does not mean he is resting. His mind may be full of worries, bills, and pressure. But someone who has no immediate financial problem and chooses to stay longer in bed on Sunday morning, or spend some hours in a hammock reading a favourite book — that, for Ismar, could be active resting.

The important word was not only rest.

The important word was choose.

For Ismar, active rest is not something that happens by chance. It is something he decides to do. It has intention. It is not simply falling into emptiness. It is a planned activity.

The Mayor immediately followed this path, as Mayors do.

Did Ismar keep a diary?

Yes, Ismar said. Not for everything. But for the most important things.

This meant that our Monday morning meeting with Ritesh and The Mayor was written in the diary. We were considered important. This is the kind of recognition that can carry a table for at least three minutes.

Later, the conversation returned to Ismar’s current profession.

He is a professional student.

Not retired. Not finished. Not parked politely at the edge of society. A professional student.

He goes to university. He studies. He reads. He keeps learning. The Mayor asked him which part gives him energy: the subject, the routine, the people, or simply the fact that at almost sixty-five he is still moving.

Ismar answered with one word.

Curiosity.

He said he is trying to improve. Not only in knowledge, but also in behaviour. He cannot measure whether he is better today than yesterday. He can only have an impression. But the impression matters.

This was one of the first clear lines in the conversation: active rest can be intellectual. It can be curiosity with a timetable.

Ritesh and the Problem with the Word Rest

Ritesh was less convinced by the phrase.

For him, rest was closer to doing nothing. Sitting. Sleeping. Watching a video. Listening to a podcast. Scrolling. Not applying the mind too much.

When The Mayor gave the example of Ralph’s wife driving 180 kilometres, staying in a hotel, buying running shoes, doing a triathlon, coming second in her age category, driving home, and then having surf and turf in the evening, Ismar and Ritesh were both unconvinced.

For Ismar, this was not active rest.

For Ritesh, it was a hobby, not rest.

And this was useful. Because sometimes a concept only becomes clear when someone refuses it.

The Mayor explained that, for him, active rest is doing something different from the usual routine. You are active, but you rest another part of yourself. You go out. You come back refreshed, better, perhaps even rejuvenated.

Ritesh listened, but he held his ground.

Running, cycling, swimming — no. He might watch it. He would not participate.

For him, rest was still “doing nothing, like, nothing.”

But then The Mayor challenged him. Was there something Ritesh did that other people might call work, but for him felt like rest?

Then the answer changed.

Walking came first.

Some of Ritesh’s friends nearby do not like to walk. He invites them, but for them walking feels like spending energy. For Ritesh, it is relaxing.

Reading came next.

He imagined going to the library, taking a book, and beginning to read. It might feel like fifteen minutes, but actually one and a half or two hours have passed. Some people do not have the capacity to sit and concentrate like that. For him, it can be relaxing.

So rest was not only nothing.

Rest was also losing time in something that did not attack him.

Walking with a Wife, Cooking in Fifteen Minutes

The most human doorway came when The Mayor asked about Ritesh walking with his wife.

Was it physical rest? Conversation? Shared time? Simply leaving the house together?

Ritesh said it was conversation. Giving time. Leaving the environment where he had been the whole day. Their flat is not exactly peaceful. The park is also not perfectly peaceful. But it has different vibes, trees, and another feeling.

This is active rest in a very ordinary married form: two people leaving the same walls and entering a different noise.

Then the conversation moved to his wife’s rest.

For Ritesh, speaking with him, with her mother, or with his mother may give her comfort. Cooking also seemed important. She cooks very well. When she starts, he feels that within fifteen minutes everything is ready. If he asks for something and she sees a recipe on YouTube or somewhere else, she can make it.

He thinks she gets pleasure from cooking.

The Mayor asked what would happen if Ritesh offered to help.

Here the article nearly became a domestic comedy.

Ritesh said he sometimes sees a reel or video and becomes passionate: let’s go and help her. But she says, no, no, I will do it. Sometimes he comes home, gives no attention, starts using the laptop, and she goes directly to the kitchen. Then he realises: oh, she is angry with me.

So he goes to the kitchen and starts chopping onions.

Generally, though, she does everything. She is making him lazy, he said. He was already lazy, but she is making him more lazy by giving him comfort.

If he insists, she tells him to be there and not do anything.

So he walks in circles in the flat, talks to her, and sometimes, if he is “a little bit romantic,” plays songs on the mobile.

Within a minute, everything is ready.

There was more truth in this little domestic scene than in many official definitions of rest.

Sometimes active rest is not the activity itself. It is the relationship around it. It is the kitchen, the onion, the song, the small attempt to repair the evening.

After School, Who Still Learns?

The conversation then widened.

What happens to learning after school in Brazil and India?

Ismar said families and close people value education. Finishing high school or a degree is celebrated. But later learning is more complicated. There are programmes for elderly people, some open-university-style options, and language courses, but he does not see many elderly people wanting to study language or other subjects.

In his view, Brazilian society values position more than knowledge. Director of a hospital. CEO. Money. Status. These things are noticed more easily than curiosity.

Ritesh described a different but connected world.

In Bangalore, there are many classes. Cooking, guitar, piano, martial arts, pottery. People go, sometimes with a girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, or wife. It may be learning, but also recreation, something to enjoy together.

For deeper learning, India has online courses, certificates, and government portals. Ritesh remembered how useful recorded lectures from top institutes were during college, especially when he and his classmates felt their local teaching was poor. They learned from videos, at their own pace, sometimes better than in the classroom.

He also remembered a time when there was a mission in India to help older people read, write, and even sit exams. Mothers and children could take exams together. Sometimes the mother scored well.

But now, in his circle, he does not see much interest in studying science or subjects later in life. Some people may turn to religious books. Others are too busy.

This gave us one of the quiet contrasts of the table.

Ismar, older, uses learning as a way to remain alive and improving.

Ritesh, younger, belongs to a generation with endless access to learning, but also endless pressure, work, screens, and distraction.

Both know that learning is available.

Neither thinks availability is the same as hunger.

When Rest Becomes Another Job

Then came the modern monster.

Is rest becoming another duty?

Do we need special socks, candles, sleep metrics, step counts, apps, subscriptions, and proof that we have rested correctly? Is peace becoming industrialised?

Ritesh answered yes.

He has a limit: 6,000 steps. He checks his mobile to see how many he has completed. If only 500 are missing, he will walk to finish them. At that point, walking is no longer only relaxation. The number is present.

He connected this to going out with friends. In college, going out meant fun, talking, anything. Now it can become a status symbol. You must go to a certain restaurant, drink a certain coffee, be part of a certain symbol.

Gym subscriptions, personal trainers, performance, value — everything becomes measured.

Even family time becomes difficult to explain. If he goes home and says he did nothing, people expect a better answer. But for him, being at home, with father, mother, family, food on the plate, no grand discussion, no performance — that can be personal time. Comfort. Family life.

But modern life asks: what did you do?

The answer “I was there” is not always accepted.

The Mayor then revealed his own terrible data.

On that Monday, his phone said he had walked twenty-four steps.

Twenty-four.

Sixteen metres.

Less than one calorie.

The table paused around this magnificent underachievement.

Ismar asked again, just to be sure: twenty-four steps?

Yes.

The Mayor defended himself. He does not carry his mobile everywhere. The app is not reliable. He had walked more than that. Probably. Also, tomorrow he would walk seven or eight kilometres up a steep hill with Fabrice. So please do not remove him from society yet.

Ritesh did not condemn him. He said The Mayor was contributing through knowledge, especially to them. Also, 37 kilometres in fifteen days was not bad.

Then Ritesh became practical. People who work in the digital space have to take breaks. Meetings go for hours. People do not drink enough water. Many have back issues, vision problems, eye strain. After work, sometimes he does not want to look at a screen again.

This was perhaps the most useful answer of the whole table.

Rest is not an abstract moral achievement. Sometimes it is water, distance vision, standing up, leaving the laptop, and not treating the body as a chair accessory.

The University of Rest

At the end, The Mayor created a small institution.

The University of Rest.

What class would Ismar teach there?

Ismar would teach about the importance of the body in life. You cannot be alive without a body, and especially without a healthy body. Health is the most important thing. Money and professional position do not matter much if health disappears.

What would Ritesh teach?

Sleep.

Especially for his generation.

He said many people are not sleeping enough. They are in bed, but scrolling, watching videos, worrying. Among colleagues, he does not see many sleeping more than seven hours. Often it is five or six. So he would teach people to sleep. Do nothing and sleep.

This was funny because sleep was already the next topic.

Ritesh was immediately offered the possibility of hosting.

Then Ismar added that it is necessary to take care of hair, because Ritesh has a nice hairstyle.

If you have a good hairstyle, Ismar suggested, you can sleep better.

This may or may not be accepted by medical science.

But it belongs to Brida science.

What We Took With Us

The conversation did not solve active rest.

It made the phrase more human.

For Ismar, active rest can be chosen, planned, intellectual, and connected to curiosity. It can be the dignity of still learning when many people expect older life to become smaller.

For Ritesh, rest begins as doing nothing, but it also becomes walking, reading, changing environment, talking with his wife, being at home, and resisting the pressure to measure every peaceful thing.

Between Brazil and India, between sixty-five and young married life, between the university and the office, between the hammock and the step counter, we found a strange shared question:

When do we feel returned to ourselves?

Not improved for society.

Not optimised for performance.

Not measured into worthiness.

Just returned.

Maybe active rest is not one activity.

Maybe it is the moment when the body, mind, and life stop being enemies for a while.

And if that fails, there is always the University of Rest.

First class: Sleep.

Second class: Curiosity.

Third class: How to survive a day with only twenty-four steps and still remain Mayor.