Doing Nothing Ain’t Easy.

Insight 107 | Il dolce far niente

It’s harder than it looks and takes more skill than we may at first realize. Many would argue it requires practice and patience, too. It is a muscle that needs to be flexed (or, ironically, relaxed). Doing “nothing” may seem like the greatest waste of time, but it turns out that doing “nada” gets a lot done.

Allow me to introduce you to il dolce far niente, the beautiful Italian philosophy of the sweetness of doing nothing.

We should make a brief clarification: this is not an invitation to mediocrity or passivity; that would make us hypocrites and run counter to the active and intentional lives we are striving to create as seekers of wisdom. This philosophy is defined by a different kind of nothing, one of action, not inaction. It’s a strategic choice, similar to taking a deep breath. You are active and simultaneously still.

Il dolce far niente is defined by two mindful pillars which together share one goal: peace.

The first of these tenets is quite simple. It’s the decision to practice “mindful awareness” of the life around you. It’s a deliberate choice to notice and take it all in. Why is this vital? Because there is so much sensory information bombarding our systems at any given moment but only a minuscule fraction of it is ever processed by our brains.

With about 1 billion bits of information coming at you from all angles*, you and your mind only consciously compute about 10 bits of it. For reference, that’s like processing one sentence out of a small library. As such, the sentences we do choose to read become mightily impactful to the stories we write.

The second pillar is the “savoring of everyday life”. Observe the verb here. Savoring, like Ratatouille experiencing fruit with cheese for the first time. It takes the “noticing” from pillar one and adds contemplation. Meaning, you first stop to see it, and then let it in for it to become a part of who you are in that moment. Together they create il dolce far niente, the sweetness of doing nothing.

The beauty here is that these tenets should fold into how you live and are not intended to be a burden. Rather they are meant to alleviate us from the stress we put on ourselves by giving us a greater lens of perspective. It puts the “here” into view regardless of what the context of the greater whole may be telling us, not ignorant, but purposefully wise, it selects the good we can only see when we choose to.

In the end, this will only be as effective as the extent to which you are willing to apply it. But once you do, you will begin to realize just how much more fulfilling and effective your life becomes. Just how much more at peace you begin to experience from moment to moment. It’s a lens that balances acknowledging the chaos and appreciates the beauty found within it. If we can’t control what goes on, we can at least find the good inside of it. That’s a choice that is only ours to make, no one can do it for us.

If you find this philosophy to be challenging to implement or impractical, perhaps you should consider the old Zen proverb which says “You should sit in meditation for 10 minutes a day. Unless you’re too busy, then you should sit for an hour.” People who never take the time to reflect with themselves will look in the mirror and always see a stranger. (This is something we will explore in the upcoming article, as admittedly, it always seems easier to take care of another than it is to take care of yourself.)

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As touched on earlier, this “nothing” asks for more of us, not less. It requires numerous moving components to apply and reap its fruits. While it seems like a paradox, we should consider the other contradiction we submit ourselves unto daily, the one where we subject ourselves to self-destructive cycles in which we chase money, fame, power, (you name it), in order to be free without realizing it’s in the name itself: Being “free” IS free, and it starts with how you decide to live your day to day.

This week I challenge us to “do” a bit more “nothing”. This means more intentional presence and less passive autopilot. It looks like commuting to work without music in order to spend time with your thoughts. It’s putting the phone away for 10 minutes to touch grass, and say thank you. It’s holding a loved one’s hand for no reason and it’s watching a sunset to admire its colors.

Il dolce far niente is not an antidote for the hard realities this world presents us. It is a salve that brings a refreshing glow to each morning we wake up, the question becomes whether or not you’re willing to apply it.

- Making The Most Of Being Curious

Daniel J. Cuesta

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P.S. Here is a picture of me striving to live this out this past week. Sitting to watch the sun set itself to sleep for only the sake of basking in the wonder of what God has created:

Sources:

An Active Stillness: Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth - Psalm 46:10

A Call To Self Reflection: Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! - 2 Corinthians 13:5

Savor Every Moment: I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man. - Ecclesiastes 3:12–13

There Is So Much Beauty All Around Us, We Cannot Understand It All: He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. - Ecclesiastes 3:11

Il Dolce Far Niente: Link

Zheng, J., & Meister, M. (2024). “The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?” Neuron, 113, 192–204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2024.11.008 (Preprint: arXiv:2408.10234, first posted Aug 3, 2024; revised Nov 15, 2024; published in Neuron Dec 17, 2024.)

1. Sensory intake: the information throughput of a human being is about 10 bits/s, while sensory systems gather data at an enormous rate, no less than 1 gigabit/s. So sensory intake is ~1 gigabit/second (10⁹ bits/s). arXiv

2. Conscious processing/output: the same figure states this is ~10 bits/second — described by the authors as the human information throughput.