Of E-Mail and Doing Nothing

I do appreciate e-mail, and I consider it rude not to respond; but lack of time and energy in synergy with congenital inefficiency conspire to make it difficult for me to answer everything. I am also temperamentally disinclined to acquiesce in mindless American hyper-kineticism, in accordance with the Italian saying:

Dolce far niente

Sweet to do nothing

which saying, were it not for the inefficiency lately mentioned, would have been by now inscribed above my stoa. My paternal grandfather had it emblazoned on his pergola, and more 'nothing' transpires on my stoa than ever did beneath his pergola.

So time each day must be devoted to 'doing nothing': meditating, traipsing around in the local mountains, contemplating sunrises and moonsets, sunsets and moonrises, and taking naps, naps punctuated on one end by bed-reading and on the other by yet more coffee-drinking.

Without a sizeable admixture of such 'nothing' I cannot see how a life would be worth living.

I do appreciate e-mail, and I consider it rude not to respond; but lack of time and energy in synergy with congenital inefficiency conspire to make it difficult for me to answer everything. I am also temperamentally disinclined to acquiesce in mindless American hyper-kineticism, in accordance with the Italian saying:

Dolce far niente

Sweet to do nothing

which saying, were it not for the inefficiency lately mentioned, would have been by now inscribed above my stoa. My paternal grandfather had it emblazoned on his pergola, and more 'nothing' transpires on my stoa than ever did beneath his pergola.

So time each day must be devoted to 'doing nothing': meditating, traipsing around in the local mountains, contemplating sunrises and moonsets, sunsets and moonrises, and taking naps, naps punctuated on one end by bed-reading and on the other by yet more coffee-drinking.

Without a sizeable admixture of such 'nothing' I cannot see how a life would be worth living.