"Gezellig" is a Dutch word that describes a certain relaxed state of mind. It also characterizes a place or atmosphere as comfortable and cozy. It encourages people to slow down, take a deep breath, chill out, talk to one another or simply sit quietly and enjoy the eternal moment of now that is so easy to forget with the endless distractions of daily life.
This concept, "gezellig", serves as an important guide to people of all walks of life in Holland. Horticulturalists and landscape architects design outdoor parks that warmly invite people with many cozy nooks and crannies near streams and ponds surrounded by beautiful trees and bushes. The Dutch are master landscapers who design and layer their natural environments like an endless 3-dimensional painting. "Gezellig" also applies to public squares, stores, restaurants, coffeeshops and cafes. Is the citizen or patron comfortable? Are they encouraged to linger, to wonder, to meditate, to listen, to enjoy their fellow human beings, to open their minds to the world around them?
Holland is the sixth richest country in the world. That is not a trivial fact. These are affluent people. They are not rich like Americans, though. Whereas we are in debt and surrounded by mountains of cheap material objects, they are simpler and more refined and restrained. They seem to me to be a nation of Aristocrats. Their banks, filled with enormous coffers of euro capital, definitely confers upon them impressive diplomatic and political power on the world stage. However, their freedom - their gezellig - comes not only from economic and political security, but also from the very comfortable fact that they are not a superpower. Nor are they among the top three or four countries competing with the U.S. for scarce resources. They have nothing to prove and nothing too terribly important to gain. They have given up their African colonies and their quest for world domination long ago.
The post-imperialist decline is a spiritual renaissance. We as Americans have nothing to fear except the continuation of things as they currently are. Expansion must contract. The cycle must reverse itself. America must fall.
And I look forward to a simple life full of American gezellig when it happens.