::Fully Alive Doing Nothing::

Three Croatian words for Ordinary Mystics (3 of 3): Fjaka

If I took you to the Croatian coast of Dalmacija, I'd show you three words: Pomalo, Konoba, and Fjaka, my current favorite. They embody a life philosophy that's hard to explain but easy to practice. Since I can’t show you, let me tell you about these three words across three posts—an opportunity to recognize something in your life.

A lot to cover here.

Imagine this.

It’s a scorching summer afternoon at the Croatian coast. You’re sitting in the cool, under a cafe awning, sipping coffee, with a sea breeze caressing you. You’re too comfortable to move, think, or even blink too quickly.

You’re in what Croatians call fjaka [fya-kah].

It’s the art of being ::fully alive doing nothing::.

A lot’s happening there.

Fjaka is a daily surprise. Photo by Robin Edqvist on Unsplash

Let’s try some definitions of this state.

Fjaka is a particular psychophysical state in which a human realizes they don’t have to add anything to their lives. Fjaka is a higher state where body, mind, and imagination are inhabited simultaneously. Fjaka is a state of being caught and captured by the delight of being alive.

Why is fjaka impossible to translate?

First, because it’s not an achievement. Instead of being a result of years of mindfulness meditation, Dalmatian, jokingly, and I believe accurately, refer to it as a gift from God. Fjaka comes with life—every person’s inheritance, joy, and right.

It is also impossible to translate, because it’s not a concept. Fjaka must be experienced to be understood. You allow it, you experience it, you get it.

Also, because it’s not as simple as laziness. It’s elevated laziness. You have the capacity and will to move and get going, but you choose not to. It’s a deliberate allowing of the ease of being alive.

And because it is not, most definitely, a personal growth technique. Too much discipline ruins it.

And the best news about fjaka?

The very best news about fjaka is that you already have it and know it!

In an average life, there is no day without a moment of fjaka, as it lends meaning to life and brings happiness and solace to the soul. This moment could be an hour, or a minute, or a second of taking it all in.

Poets and philosophers from every culture have written about fjaka using their own words to describe this state of awakened dreaming.

Let’s take William Blake, a poet and painter from London at the turn of the 19th century, for example. In the Romantic era, artists and writers responded to the significant changes occurring in Europe, including the introduction of new machinery and large factories, which led to cities becoming much larger and more industrialized.

Blake was considered mad by his contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, but was later embraced for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents in his work.

Here’s William Blake’s line: “There is a time in the day where Satan cannot come.”

This is not about religion. Blake was fiercely anti-religious. This is the assertion that every human being, every day, can find a moment of freedom.

Nowadays, society venerates focus, achievement, disruption, and shrill ambition. I sometimes coach corporate executives who wonder why their growing children sometimes refuse to leave their rooms. This phenomenon, observed around the globe, is partly due to learned helplessness, but also serves as a pushback against the coercive tactics of the adult world, which has acquiesced to corporations, governments, and other institutions.

“Let me break it to you,” I tell them, “Your and my kids are using rest as resistance to the world you and I have pushing on them.”

Coerced no more.

That’s what my daughters Ena and Leta are saying, and living. They protect themselves from exhaustion. I come from a generation that gets quite nervous about this, but the sky is not falling.

Actual bodily, psychological, and spiritual experience of freedom is what gets dictators, institutions, and forces that maintain coercive societies all tied up in fear. Fjaka moments are subversive. They grant us a daily experience of freedom.

Martin Luther King had a plan, yes. He worked hard, yes, to death. But his power came from his dream. Blake’s power came from poetry. Where’s your power coming from? Let’s join thousands of revolutionaries, in my culture and yours, who had to be Ordinary Mystics (OMs) first.

Wondering how to practice fjaka?

Like other life’s best gifts, fjaka arrives when we don’t expect it.

So, don’t make it a chore. Let it come to you with ease. Ease matters. Treat fjaka like a wild animal. The more you chase it, the more shy fjaka becomes to come to you. Simply respect the wild.

Finally, fjaka can be disorienting. You can forget who you are, where you are, why you are, or even when you are. You re-finding yourself, instead.

Three words—pomalo, konoba, and fjaka—capture something universally human. Whether you're Croatian or not, it doesn’t matter. Somehow, you know what I’m talking about. These words, as strange as they are, are deeply familiar to you. Perhaps you have your own words for them, from your religious, philosophical, or family tradition?

In sum, here’s our glossary gain:

Pomalo is a practice of living a Life at Life’s Own Pace. Don’t push.

Konoba is a practice of creating Your Public Place. Let people in.

Fjaka is a practice of experiencing being Fully Alive Doing Nothing. Let it all in.

As I finish this three-part series, I realize that one word stands out and ties them all together. It’s perhaps the most essential word in today’s world, describing the most potent ability you have: Availability.

I am not talking here about giving yourself to others as a way of being moral, friendly, or generous. I am referring here to the skill, specifically the practice of expanding the time-space-heart capacity of your life—clean and care for your life to make room for experiencing yourself, others, and the world.

We OMs apprentice ourselves to our own lives. It turns out that the first life’s lesson, its last, and daily lesson every day in between, is “Alive and available. Learn to be alive and available.”

— Samir

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