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Ask not what you can do

 but what you can 'not do'!

This is my translation of what would be an anti-Kennedy quote but also the takeaway from a book I recently read.

Titled 'Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing' by Olga Mecking, an ex-pat something or the other now living in the Netherlands (I learned from her writing that it is no longer Holland since that name is of two provinces in the small country and not the entire country) it talks about a Seinfeldian utopia except applied in daily life.



Apparently the happy Dutch have cracked the code.  They are happy because they have found ways to do nothing.  Sometimes.  In first few pages she sets out to sell her book by indicating to the reader that she is not a wellness guru.  Far from it.  However, her book is also distinct and unique in a way that no other self help book is.  In that it is not.

It is bit ironic that the reading of said book requires you to exert some grey matter, yet it advises against the use of the same matter to be totally 'niksening'.

Niksen, literally translated from Dutch is the concept of nothing.  Sort of a metaphysical void.  Idling.  Like a gas engine thrumming in park.

It is not that removed from what I guess I did as a kid in India.  Got bored a lot.  Right.  That which does not necessarily task the brain to get an outcome.  But what results is a fertile mind.  Relaxed.  More energized to do something.

It compares and contrasts various cultures in the world where this concept has been tried out from French or Spanish siestas or the Indian dopahar ki neend, to Zen way of life where you enjoy each moment rather than worrying of outcomes.

Frankly I find that all this writing about asking people to make conscious choices is only good  up to a point.  People are wound up because of the constant pressure put on them by their surroundings.  Facebook and other gizmos propel people to constantly look hot, excited, or one upping their other humdrum friend circle of 5,000 until they can find the next high.

Yuval Harari had made a good point in his books about this constant 'chasing the next' mentality as being a destabilizing element of human happiness.

Olga's book is a quick read and filled with occasional humor about the Dutch of whom I knew little.  As to Niksen (notwithstanding that it sounds like a goofy president) is already part of my vocabulary - as proven by all the Seinfeld episodes I watch to go off to sleep.  Again and again. 

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