In a world where everyone strives to reach the society standard of being successful, every minute costs so much that sitting still has already become a taboo.
But in South Korea, there's a contest for doing nothing called the Space-out competition to go against the modernity of the present day. The organizer believes that peace of mind is what human beings truly need. They said that if you space out long enough, you can reach the trance state of mind.
Find out about this weird competition for the meaning of life on Main Stand.
Living in the modern world
It is more complicated and more challenging every day to have the time to sit still and do nothing, say nothing or do any other activities like playing on our phones.
Everybody can feel it. Human behavior has shifted entirely since the advent of innovation and technology, and even though everybody realized this, no one wanted to change.
It is a comfortable life where one can enjoy something new from across the globe at any given moment. We can check on the news, read dramas on Twitter and talk to anybody we want to talk to anytime. This may be why the ratio between phones and their human owners has become one-to-one.
But South Koreans think smartphones have rooted into their livelihood way too much. For example, 80% of the 50 million South Koreans use smartphones daily and are on screen for four hours per day and 15% of people are addicted to smartphones.
So the organizer of the competition decided to create an activity to counter these statistics and make their compatriots realize the harms of smartphones.
This revolutionary event was first held in 2014. Then, the organizer of Space-out thought about an activity that seemed easy, like sitting still, which has become so enjoyable for many South Koreans that there were live broadcasting and voting from the audience at home, just like a reality show.
The idea of Space-out
Space-out is something more than just doing nothing. The contestants must go beyond the other dimension, away from their surroundings, with no talking, no giggling and no cell phone. They are not allowed to sleep for 90 minutes. However, the contestants can go on short water or toilet breaks if the organizer permits them.
The winner of this race of doing nothing must be someone who can space out the longest with the most stable heart rate as if they have no feelings. The viewers at home will be the judges for the winner.
The one who found sponsors for the race and created the rules is a local artist named WoopsYang. From the start, she wanted to hold a race like no other for anybody to be able to relax from hard work and focus on their own thoughts.
"We splurge on delicious food or goods we want to buy when we finally get paid after our laborious work. Then why not for time?" said WoopsYang.
"I was suffering from burnout syndrome at the time but would feel extremely anxious if I was sitting around doing nothing, not being productive in one way or another. I thought, ‘we would all feel better about doing nothing if we did nothing together as a group.’"
WoopsYang said that she had more than 1,500 participants signing up for the first competition in 2014.
The copy, "Let our brain – never free from information overload from a smartphone, TV or computer – relax!. Let's enjoy just thinking about nothing!" attracted many young people.
The gimmick of the competition garnered a lot of attention and today the competition has been recognized worldwide, with participants coming from overseas.
This shows that even though we have another world in our smartphones, deep down, we want to keep in touch with ourselves.
How to win?
The more you zone out, the more you have the chance to win. But how will you know who is the most zoned-out one? The criteria of Space-out is not only via popular vote. The contestants who reach the final round must be monitored through their heart rates, which will be able to tell who's in the most profound state of calmness.
Staying calm and thinking about nothing for 90 minutes is very hard, according to a competitor named Kim Ah-Reum.
"I was so cold and hungry… I heard crows and participants coughing, so it wasn't easy not to think," said Kim.
However, when the participants can reach another state of mind where all the disturbances can get them, it will become a moment where it feels like nirvana.
"During the competition, my thoughts stopped," revealed Kim. "I think I just had a dream."
But Kim Myeong-yeop, the winner of the 2022 competition, begged to differ. He didn't go through any trance whatsoever but what pulled him together in the contest was his imagination of a baseball match with his favorite team, the Hanwha Eagles.
"I've been a Hanwha fan for 10 years, so I naturally zone out (at this competition) like how I zone out at Hanwha games," he shared.
He explained that the baseball team's performance has recently become abysmal. But, even though he felt miserable, he couldn't stop rooting for the team.
So coming in, thinking of the Hanwha Eagles’ games was his method behind winning the competition.
Although some people want to win the contest, Space-out became so popular because the participants want to release their lives from stress and the contest opens up an opportunity for them to do so. Many said that it helped them. Even though they didn't win, they still attained the peace they hadn't felt for years.
"I was so exhausted physically and mentally while preparing an album, so I just wanted to relax for a while," said Shin Hyo-Seob, aka Crush, a Korean rapper who participated in the competition shared his view, which touched many other participants.
"This event is highly recommended for those with migraines or complicated thoughts.”
"Resting" is the most uncomplicated thing everybody in this world needs. That's the real takeaway of the Space-out. It's a competition that tests our mentality and rewards people with true peace without having to win the competition.
Sources
https://philstarlife.com/geeky/447592-south-korea-hosts-space-out-competition-do-nothing
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2022/09/19/culture/lifeStyle/SpaceOut-Competition-zone-out-competition-han-river/20220919135356358.html
https://mashable.com/article/south-korea-space-out-competition
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/22/screen-addicted-south-koreans-compete-in-space-out-contest
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3dwky/space-out-competition-korea-zen-do-nothing
