The art of idle pleasure

A recent Guardian newspaper article about efforts to expand Saudi Arabia’s economy identified one of the obstacles – the disinclination of young Saudis to work hard. This is due in part to the country’s oil wealth and its ability to hire foreign workers for jobs Saudis would rather not do. But I am inclined to think an indifference to work is also rooted in the culture. Not just of Saudi Arabia, but of the entire region. The protestant work ethic of northern Europe does not, as far as I know, have an historical equivalent in the muslim culture of the Middle East.

I can’t say the virtue of work is unappreciated in the muslim world. I don’t know about that. An antipathy to hard graft seems evident in many of the world’s hot climate regions. On the other hand, in Turkey I discovered an appreciation for idleness that is utterly foreign to “western” culture.

In Istanbul I was invited to a Nargile cafe. A nargile, or shisha, is a hookah pipe. Smoking shisha is an everyday pasttime for many Turks. The tobacco used for shisha is flavoured – in our case apple-flavoured – and each smoker is given a removable plastic mouthpiece to use for their turn at the pipe. I haven’t smoked tobacco since I was ten and at that time found it too foul-tasting to endure. Shisha, however, is not like that at all. I inhaled deeply and felt a warm, gentle infusion of apple enter my body. Reclining on cushions in the shade of trees at an outdoor cafe with people all around; it was an entirely pleasant experience. We spent most of an afternoon talking and smoking and enjoying the social scene of others doing the same. It felt decadent and somehow wrong to my protestent sensibilities to spend an afternoon doing nothing but lounge about. I had to resist the temptation to look at my watch and to think of other, more productive, things I could be doing. Eventually I just ignored the little voice in my head and gave in to the simple pleasure of it all.

The Turks have a word for this kind of pursuit: Keyif, the art of idle relaxation. Making an art form of idleness is definitely not part of my cultural heritage. But when in Istanbul… do what the Istanbullus do.

Part of the seduction of Keyif is the refinement that has been brought to such idle pleasures as smoking shisha. It comes from a culture many hundreds of years in the making, developed in a pleasant place with a gentle climate where many generations of people have lived, loved, and had families. The patterns of life here are stamped into the cobblestones of the ancient alleyways and etched in the faces of the old and the merchants of the bazaars. There is a depth and richness to daily life in an old city like Istanbul that is missing in North American cities. With our fixation on economic growth, productivity and efficiency we have lost the ability to appreciate the simple pleasure of idle relaxation.