Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash
We OLLI students, despite being older adults, choose to fill a portion of our time taking classes, reading, and writing to nourish our intellectual curiosity. We are back in school where we learn and question as well as read and write—all features of what our reality was when we were much younger during our years of formal schooling in that long ago stage of our lives.
While it was true that our educational years were not spent exclusively in classrooms and libraries, those places of learning dominated much of our lives back then. As older learners now, however, the total number of hours per week devoted exclusively to being a student is far less. Consequently, most of our waking hours are available to us for lots of activities that we want to do but are not required of us: watching movies, socializing, playing cards with friends, or simply “going fishing”, a phrase used to exemplify using one’s free time just to relax, and not doing anything highly productive.
I experienced a humorous “going fishing” situation a few years ago when I was canoeing with a friend at a reservoir. We saw someone in a nearby rowboat fishing and we casually asked him “are you catching anything?” His humorous answer was: “I’m not catching, I’m fishing”, implying that the odds were highly against him catching a fish, but there was certainty that he could relax being in a boat with a baited hook on a fishing pole dragging in the water.
"Il dolce far niente" is an Italian phrase, and philosophy, I adore. It translates as "the sweetness of doing nothing." It can mean having a cup of coffee with a friend, heading to the beach to look at the action of the waves, or sitting idly on a park bench watching people go by. When these leisure activities are the focus of how one is spending time, one is experiencing "il dolce far niente."
Many famous writers have explored this subject, including Robert Frost in his well-known poem “The Road Not Taken.” If one fills their time with highly structured activities with a focused goal, there is less likelihood of accidentally stumbling upon something beautiful or wonderful that enriches your day. It’s the spontaneity and adventure of such unplanned happenings, unlike doing something with a specific goal, that can bring joy, pleasure and meaning. For us OLLI students, this can be especially true during this later stage of our lives.
I remember a hike I once took coming down a hillside looking up at the sky and viewing a beautiful cloud formation. It brought forth an emotional revelation in my mind and I became awe struck as I perceived the miracle of clouds in the sky bringing rain to the land providing plants and mankind with fresh water to drink to survive. Those spontaneous and deep insights involved no classes, professors, books, or study guides, but at that moment helped me appreciate the miracles of the world we live in
Take all the classes you desire and study to your heart’s delight, but don’t forget to complement that with lots of "il dolce far niente" so that your awareness of having a life in the first place remains high on your list of what you are grateful for!
Dr. Hugh Winig is a retired psychiatrist and a longtime OLLI @Berkeley member and volunteer.