In Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert says that even against that backdrop of hard work, il bel far niente has always been a cherished Italian ideal. The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life’s achievement. You don’t necessarily need to be rich in order to experience this, either. There’s another wonderful Italian expression: l’arte d’arrangiarsi –the art of making something out of nothing. The art of turning a few simple ingredients into a feast, or a few gathered friends into a festival. Anyone with a talent for happiness can do this, not only the rich.
The whole movie is a cliché. Perhaps one of the worst movies that the beautiful J.R. has ever made (as an actress, obviously) in her career. Btw, 2 considerations:
- we usually refer to "il bel far niente" with another expr. --> "il DOLCE far niente". But that's barely the same concept;
- bear in mind that if we are using terms like NEGOTIATE, NEGOTIATION, it's just because they come from the latin "negotium", which is defined as "the negation of the <<otium>>", that means you are referring to the otium (the act of lazying, doing nothing) in order to define a commercial, political as well as a social concept.
Davide, quello che hai scritto e` molto interessante, grazie!
In my view these words from the Authir you are reporing,
are a sequence of foolish things, in Italian: 'stupidaggini'.
They might have a compelling sound, and that is even worse.
Italians are in their majority sane people and what they strive for is
a wise path through life, where some small or big realizations
will happen.
