If forced to choose a nationality apart from American, I’d probably choose Dutch. It’s not just their scenery, beer, canals, chocolate, museums, legal narcotics, flowers, women, art and women. My favorite bit is they engage in niksen, which is not as smutty as it sounds. Niksen’s a wellness trend that means "doing nothing". It caught the world’s attention in 2019 as a way to manage stress or recover from burnout. At the time, people were suffering exhaustion and depression caused by overwork and were looking for solutions – which is why concepts like Japanese iligai and the Danish hygge also entered the English lexicon. In the Netherlands, niksen is used in positive and negative ways. A parent might say to his kid, "Zit je weer te niksen?" (Are you doing nothing again?) and the child would reply, “Lekker niksen” (Deliciously doing nothing). You’d think all that wonderful stuff in my second sentence would be enough, but Holland’s just getting started.
© 2024 John Oliver
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