Dolce far Niente: The Sweetness of Doing Nothing - Italian

Is living in a hurry a natural trait?

The cost of a thing is the amount of life which is required to be exchanged for it.

Henry David Thoreau

Humans appear to be quite fond of sitting around doing nothing. We came across two words with the same meaning not long after. The first was Niksen, which is a Dutch word. Now I'm here with a word that caresses my soul like a love song melody.

Dolce far Niente

Dolce far Niente, like Niksen, is the philosophy of doing nothing and enjoying it. This time, we're not talking about a single word, but rather a phrase, but let's reserve the right to step out of the norm at times. Literally, why not?

Photo by Maria Lupan on Unsplash

I think this is where the slowness, the sweet and justified lethargy that tends to penetrate my soul with the onset of the summer heat—because every living being has the right to slow down in the summer months—has led me. That's why I'm bringing you this poetic, song-like word that we want to sing more and more of the more we sing it.

In fact, those who have read Elizabeth Gilbert's entertaining and inspiring book Eat, Pray, Love or watched the movie of the same name in which the beautiful Julia Roberts, one of my top favorite actresses, plays Gilbert, will remember the signature of this concept in the part of the story set in Italy.

Meals with family and friends in the Italian countryside, conversations, laughter, and being together aimlessly, falling asleep, and just waking up in the morning without worrying about catching up. As an American, Gilbert can't help but surrender to the underlying philosophy and the mature feeling it leaves in people.

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Doing nothing is not being lazy. Our time on earth is finite and we work like a machine without stopping in order to accomplish the tasks, projects, missions or achievements that we want to do before we leave or that are expected of us in some way - it could be the expectation of the family, the expectation of society or even the heavy burdens we impose on ourselves. It seems like a sin to stop in this production process, and those who do are lazy sinners.

But there is beauty in slowing down. There are things we can see, realize and feel only when we stop. Perhaps there are gains far beyond what we can achieve after completing a project in what we see when we stop.

Nothing is living in a hurry except us, humans.

. Birds just sing or fly; they live in the naiveté that nature expects them to do.

. Trees stand in green, representing the humble strength of Earth, while being the home to other animals, and even communicating with each other without any bit of hurry.

. Clouds slip in the sky, sometimes forming funny shapes to make children delighted or to animate their imagination, but in fact simply aiming to water the world.

Then, what is the reason behind all the hurrying of humanity?

. To put an unerasable trace on the world without any concern of making good or bad?

. Forming another world with the inner intention of defeating the original one, Earth?

. Or are we just born with an unpreventable greed and passion for movement?

There is no doubt that those are existentialist questions that need to be asked and thought about. Let’s put them on our table now, with this essay, and ponder with the intention of finding some answers on the other editions.

Notes & Reads:

• Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price is a book that challenges the phenomenon of "laziness" as an unwanted human trait and digs into the generally accepted understanding to discover the real reasons. Price also shakes off the idea that "your worth is your productivity" and "you cannot trust your own feelings and limits." It’s an interesting book to re-consider our beliefs about laziness.

• The Art of Lying Fallow: Psychoanalyst Masud Khan on the Existential Salve for the Age of Cultish Productivity and Compulsive Distraction in Marginalian, a matchless, unique blog by Maria Popova, introduces the concept of "lying fallow," which was brought to life by psychoanalyst Masud Khan. He describes his new concept as:

Through the metaphor of an active verb, I wish to indicate that the mood I am trying to discuss is not one of inertia, listless vacancy or idle quietism of the soul; nor is it a flight from harassed purposiveness and pragmatic action. Lying fallow is a transitional state of experience, a mode of being that is alerted quietude and receptive wakeful lambent consciousness.

Have a great week and weekend full of rest with the philosophy of “dolce far niente.” Don’t forget to take sips from a big glass of cold lemonade!

Till next week.

— Gulsun

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