Dolce Far Niente

In his Reveries du Promeneur Solitaire, Rousseau describes floating in his little boat off the Swiss island of St. Pierre. He describes letting go of all desire and ambition in this "dolce far niente": a sweet doing nothing.

Rousseau recounts that for brief moments he felt simply the "sentiment de l'existence," or the feeling of being. For the anxious and acutely self-conscious Rousseau, these were transcendent but fleeting moments.

Then he went back to writing about childhood education while leaving his own kids at the orphanage door.

The most simple feeling - that of just being - was the most elusive for Rousseau. Daily concerns, intellectual matters, old resentments; all these intruded upon the moment, disrupting the unmediated connection to nowness.

I saw a bird today who could have shown Rousseau a thing or two. I was walking through the park on my way to work, and there were a bunch of little birds pecking at the grass, presumably for bugs or worms or crumbs or whatever.

I don't know from birds. They were small and brown. Sparrows?

One of them was splashing around in a mud puddle, a-shakin' and a-shimmyin' and looking for all the world like he was having just about as much sentiment de l'existence as one tiny bird could take. After a few seconds he hopped out of the puddle and headed off to join the other birds with their furious pecking.

Then he slowly swivelled his head back, eyeing the puddle. Then back to the birds busily pecking on the grass. I swear, you could almost see a cartoon thought bubble: "Man, screw that."

He jumped back in the puddle and resumed splashing.

It was the cutest damn thing I've ever seen. Including puppies, kittens, and 3 out of 4 of my nieces and nephews. It was cuter than the button than some people say old Feemus is cuter than.

If that makes any sense.

Anyway, this post doesn't have anything much to do with Rousseau. I'm just not quite secure enough to write about cute birdies without some (pseudo-)intellectual bullshit thrown in.