The philosophy I touched on in yesterday's article rests on an idea that is utterly simple, yet far from easy to apply for many people. This comes down to the way in which people are accustomed to spending their time and living their lives. In the end, it is not the philosophy of an individual or the choice of a select group; it is more a general social philosophy, a collective belief whose principles everyone cooperates in practising. That philosophy has an expression in the Italian language that can be translated as follows: to live life with the pleasure of doing nothing.
How can you enjoy the details of your time and your daily life without doing anything? The Italians say that a person does not need to chase a specific goal in order to enjoy themselves, nor must they always strive to achieve some grand purpose — or even a modest one. You can walk for the pleasure of it, to connect with whoever is beside you, or to commune with nature and breathe in the air — nothing more. And so you keep walking along the walkways without your destination being a place, an address, a person, or the accomplishment of a certain number of kilometres to burn a certain number of calories.
You can sit in the morning at your favourite café with no one — with yourself and your thoughts — turning over an urgent or beautiful idea that passed through your mind or that you recently read in a book, or watching the passers-by in the open street, linking their movements to their ages and the nature of the relationships between them. You can compose stories from a simple session of observation — and I mean a deep session of observation grounded in philosophy, not one driven by gossip, bullying, or mockery of others.
There are two things of the utmost importance that Italians never relinquish, and anyone who has visited Rome or some of the historic cities can observe them. The first is taking sufficient time for an afternoon nap and eating lunch slowly with the family, having intimate conversations with them — which is why they close their shops at midday for precisely this purpose.
The second is the practice of walking, connecting with others, breathing fresh air, and resting the body — not running and exhausting it.
Italians are among the noisiest of peoples, but theirs is a noise that expresses their way of enjoying life.