In our busy and hurried lives, we are losing the ability to be inactive. Human existence becomes fully absorbed by activity – even leisure, treated as a respite from work, becomes part of the same logic. Intense life today means first of all more performance or more consumption. We have forgotten that it is precisely inactivity, which does not produce anything, that represents an intense and radiant form of life. For Byung-Chul Han, inactivity constitutes the human. Without moments of pause or hesitation, acting deteriorates into blind action and reaction. When life follows the rule of stimulus–response and need–satisfaction, it atrophies into pure survival: naked biological life. If we lose the ability to be inactive, we begin to resemble machines that simply function. True life begins when concern for survival, for the exigencies of mere life, ends. The ultimate purpose of all human endeavour is inactivity. In a beautifully crafted ode to the art of being still, Han shows that the current crisis in our society calls for a very different way of life: one based on the  vita contemplative . He pleads for bringing our ceaseless activities to a stop and making room for the magic that happens in between. Life receives its radiance only from inactivity. "Han's message about the importance of recovering the art of inactivity makes a serious point: if we stay on the hamster wheel of activity, we risk self-destruction. ― Parliament Magazine "A synthesis and expansion of Han's earlier work on contemplation ... reads like a précis for a new stage in Han's writings, one with roots in his garden." ― The Lamp "... fascinating.... There is a palpable beauty, at once philosophical and aesthetic, to Han's vision." ― Joshua Cohen, Los Angeles Review of Books "Han's enquiries into the different regions of contemporary experience, including work, time, love and art, yield a remarkably consistent project of thought, a relentless critique of the spiritual and political privations of digital capitalism." ― Aeon Byung-Chul Han  is the author of more than twenty books including  The Burnout Society ,  Saving Beauty  and  The Scent of Time .