Are We Really Languishing? An Invitation to Dolce Far Niente

“The nonchalance and dolce-far-niente air of nature and society hint at infinite periods in the progress of mankind.”

— Henry David Thoreau —

In his New York Times op-ed, There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing, psychologist Adam Grant makes the case that on our pandemic odyssey we’ve moved from acute anguishing to long-haul languishing. Languishing, “the neglected middle child of mental health, can dull your motivation and focus and it may be the dominant emotion of 2021.” He goes on to characterize it as “the void between depression and flourishing — the absence of well-being. You don’t have symptoms of mental illness, but you’re not the picture of mental health either. You’re not functioning at full capacity.” In his eyes what grief was to 2020, languishing is to 2021.

This piece flew around the interwebs, the “it” share for a few weeks in April. I remember reading it and having an alternative perspective on the state and future of our collective consciousness. Fittingly, I started writing this piece back then and it sat languishing — or perhaps, as I prefer to see it, ripening — in my Drafts folder until now.

Languishing brings to mind languid and languor, etymological kin with less pejorative meanings that are among my favorite words. Gooey and unguent, sensual and slow, they feel warm and sweet in my mouth and remind me of molasses and novels set in the Deep South in summertime. They bring a wistful nostalgia for the simpler times of my youth when I spent hours lying around doing nothing, blissfully idle…well almost.

I was raised by busy doers with a strict Protestant work ethic in a city that never sleeps. We embraced busyness as a lifestyle decades before over-scheduling came into vogue, our home abuzz with unrelenting domestic labor and what my father regularly referred to as a war on entropy. We were firmly in the “devil makes work for idle hands” camp, inspiring my brother-in-law to famously observe that we “Greers suffer from a condition called AWS — Always Wiping (or Washing) Something”. He was (and is) not wrong!

Despite this, my childhood in 60s and 70s New York City included memorable periods of languor and indolence — especially in the hot summer months when my parsimonious parents rationed expensive air conditioning and we were all forced by the oppressive heat and humidity to draw the curtains, pull down the shades, and slow the f*** down. I remember spending hours unmoving, lost in novels, exploring other realities, or just staring up at the patch of sky visible outside my bedroom window, daydreaming.

And yet all my languid memories are tinged with guilt and shame — as were those periods of indolence at the time. Doing nothing was a sin in my family — doing nothing and deriving pleasure from it, even more so. As I reflect on these periods of my life I can recall the duality of the experience — blissful indolence on the one hand, a deeply uncomfortable guilt accompanied by restlessness on the other.

It’s taken a lot of deprogramming for me to rest, to be still — to be rather than do — and I’m still a work in progress when it comes to allowing myself the space and grace for languor. Like all things in life, languor is a mindfulness practice. One that I drift away from and choose to continually re-engage with when I find myself moving too fast.

I suspect I am not alone in navigating this inner conflict. Rest and relaxation shaming is woven into our cultural narratives and its power has increased with our relentless pursuit of advancement, achievement, and accumulation. Our Protestant purpose and progress programming is compounded by that of Industrial Revolution productivity which treats human beings as resources, disposable and replaceable inputs to the means of production and wealth creation. We pride ourselves on our stamina and the degree to which we can emulate high performing machines that never sleep. The notion of downtime implying a failure to perform at our peak potential rather than a necessary much less desirable state of being for a life well lived.

You can hear it in Adam Grant’s quote above: “you are not functioning at full capacity”. He goes on to say: “Languishing dulls your motivation, disrupts your ability to focus, and triples the odds that you’ll cut back on work.” Programmed for progress and pushed to our limits, perhaps we’re not languishing but merely exhausted from a relentless rat race that runs 24x7x365. Perhaps the pandemics came to shine light on the fact that the way we are working is not working. Perhaps cutting back on work is not a symptom but the cure.

We are hurtling towards a predictable and likely catastrophic future at warp speed — like humanity has pounded one too many Red Bulls and the wings that it’s given us are those of Icarus heading towards self-immolation. The cracks in our broken system are showing and growing ever more massive. Every day more and more of us fall through them into a dark void of depression, anxiety, suicidality, addiction, and other diseases of disconnection. Grant notes that languishing is a leading indicator for depression and, with long-haul languishing becoming endemic to our culture at a time when depression was already rampant in our world, this is of grave concern.

It doesn’t have to be this way. It’s time for a reframe. Collectively, we have the power to reshape reality, not just by finding flow as he suggests, but by reframing and rewriting the narratives that guide and give our lives meaning. Languishing can become languor, and we can choose to view it as a nourishing and necessary state of deep rest rather than a gateway to depression.

A sane response to the insanity of our time.

A recognition that not only is our current way of being not regenerative, it’s not sustainable.

A breakdown in which, as I’ve written before, we can find both beauty and truth.

As my magical friend Michael described it, for him languishing is a liminal space — like finding yourself on a train platform, unsure of where you are and where you’re going. We are taught to be uncomfortable in this space of uncertainty — to believe something’s wrong with us — and yet we are at a crossroads, poised on a platform of potential where from a languid state of relaxation and rest, we can choose the next train and its direction. We can choose a future of greater balance — one in which we make space for both being and doing — modulating the extremes of laziness and hyper productivity for a more regenerative, harmonious, and resonant state of being.

The Great Pandemic Pause stopped the entire world on its tracks and left us all stranded on a liminal train platform with the power to choose what’s next. Time slowed down and for some this has been profoundly uncomfortable and full of less than healthy coping mechanisms and for others it has been profoundly rich and generative opportunity — a mega moment of MA with huge potential for introspection, reflection, and insight. And for many of us, myself included, it’s been all of that, all at once and at times it has felt like a lot! My hope is that we will harvest the gifts of this deeply tumultuous and transformational threshold moment so that we don’t lose sight of the wisdom and opportunities for our collective evolution it contains as we choose our next train.

I am not languishing but I am feeling the need for languor in every cell of my being. Especially after the intensity of the storms in the year 2021, storms whose halo effect is still with me. I continue to sense into and presence with these intense energetic imprints as I seek to return to the quiet, grounding calm that lies in the I.

We’ve witnessed and embraced the Slow Food movement — a celebration and of local foods and culinary traditions in response to the horrors of our supersize me world. I dream of a Slow Life movement. A languid, pleasure-filled experience that balances blissful indolence with purposeful, meaningful activity. A celebration of what my beloved Sicillian friend Laura calls “dolce far niente” which translates as “sweet doing nothing” or “sweet idleness” and which Merriam-Webster defines as “pleasant relaxation in carefree idleness”. This is a rich, generative, and vital space of Ma.

A space between experiences that allows for reflection, integration, insight, and emergence.

A space which nurtures creativity and allows for inspiration.

A space of deep rest and blissful indolence where we can stop our incessant doings and reconnect to our innate, deeply human being-ness.

On the Winter Solstice — which means stillness of the sun and is in itself a powerful moment of pause — I invite you to join me in embracing dolce far niente. Let us slow our pace, go inward, and get quiet. Let’s gift ourselves the space and grace to root — to grow down and in — metabolizing our experiences to restore the soil of our inner landscape in preparation for planting seeds of intention come springtime.

And speaking of renewal, I’ve created a nourishing online retreat for female identifying readers — a layered practice blending mindfulness, restorative movement, quiet contemplation, and Contagious Vulnerability that begins on January 30, 2022. It is designed to restore your being and help you reconnect to you — to your inner wisdom, your authentic truth, and to the quiet, grounded center that is your I in the storms. You can learn more here.