John William Godward’s 1897 oil painting ‘Dolce Far Niente’.
| Photo Credit: Wiki Commons
Usually, I start each year with a couple of goals. I don’t call them resolutions, to my mind that word suggests something that needs improving. Goals have the lilt of being a loftier aspiration, an accomplishment to chase. These ambitions are extra — things I hope to achieve outside my everyday existence of having a job and raising a child. It infuses in me a sense of purpose as well as a spirit of optimism, as though my life and the world will be positively altered if I just focused my energies appropriately.
I have begun most of my big projects in this manner. I have written books, learned new things and climbed mountains only because I had told myself at the beginning of the year that I would. So much so that even having a child was once a new year goal, articulated in December and efficiently delivered the following October. I grew up in a small town and in navigating a challenging life and career in a big city, I felt my goal-based, no-nonsense approach was the best way to accomplish things, do something meaningful. Usually, I have been on target and accomplished my goals.
This year, for the first time, I have decided on a new strategy. I have decided to give up. Partly, this is because of a sense of ennui that has been building up. We started 2023 with one major war and ended it with two. Our careers and livelihoods have become unstable, with artificial intelligence powering up the way it is, who knows what will remain for humans to do. Why write a book or paint a picture when AI can do it better? Forget livelihoods, life itself has become perilous, with climate change we are simply one big cloudburst away from disaster.
No time for life
Aspiring for lofty goals seems pointless in this milieu. But that is not the only reason I am seeking to do nothing. In the last few years, I have increasingly become aware that being a goal-oriented person has left me with no time to enjoy life. Any activity that is not productive is laced with guilt. When I meet with a friend, I am thinking about the eight articles I meant to read; when I’m reading a book, I am wondering if I should embark on another publishing project.
Even going on a holiday is a task. I can only envy the people who can lounge about in a pool all day, soaking in the sun and reading a book, whose only physical activity is raising a colourful cocktail from the table to their lips. If I haven’t hit all the spots on my intended agenda for the day, the holiday is a failure. The idea of “wasting time” doing nothing is the antithesis of every value that a 1980s childhood taught, where watching television for 30 minutes meant 30 minutes away from the books.
Measuring every moment
But the past is not alone in this. The modern world significantly contributes to this never-stop, always-on burnout. Every day, we are scolded by our phones for things we haven’t accomplished — steps we haven’t taken, breaths we haven’t measured, journals we haven’t written, language lessons we haven’t finished. Even at the end of a long day, when I have managed to tick all of these boxes and collapsed in front of the television for a minute or two, my watch suggests that I stand up for a bit. All the micro-ambitions I expressed to my digital self at the beginning of the year seem to be ganging up on me every day.
So, after more than two decades of running around a hamster wheel of endless action, this year I am just putting my feet up. While the seekers and the adventurists are conquering ever higher peaks, I will be seated in my couch binge-watching smutty reality TV. When Instagram influencers create and post a dozen videos a day, I plan to go for a walk and pet every dog I encounter. When my business-minded friends chase revenues and profits, I will curl up in a holiday home somewhere and read a book that someone else has written. I’ll silence the notifications that tell me I haven’t exercised enough or slept enough or walked enough steps. I’ll stop worrying about the clock and the calendar. Apparently, the Italians have a term for it — Il dolce far niente: the sweetness of doing nothing. That sounds about perfect. Maybe I should learn Italian while at it! Maybe.
Even at the end of a long day, when I have managed to tick all the boxes and collapsed in front of the television for a minute or two, my watch suggests that I stand up for a bit.
The author has written ‘’Independence Day: A People’s History.’