I'm glad that you are enjoying the book. Words are important. I know that I bang on about it, but how can you understand or share ideas if there are no words for them?? That's exactly why they removed words from the language in the book '1984' - you couldn't have 'bad' thoughts if the words and the concepts themselves didn't exist.

And culture is so important for happiness too. In Italian (I don't speak any Italian, so forgive me if I'm getting this slightly wrong), they have a word that basically translates as 'the art of doing nothing'. I find that interesting because 1) it seems to be an active process of doing nothing (rather than passive like we would see it in English), but also it doesn't have the negative connotations that we give 'doing nothing' in English.

At least in the UK and US, I know that doing nothing has bad connotations of laziness etc. Everybody likes to humble brag about how 'busy' they are all of the time, which, IMO, is why we're all so stressed as a society! For me, I have found great pleasure in practising 'the art of doing nothing' (as I understand it, not speaking Italian or knowing their full interpretation of the saying) of trying to live in the moment and enjoy the simple pleasures in life, such as a warm breeze, a nice cup of tea, spying a ladybird on a leaf in the garden etc etc. That's happiness to me, and I've found little elsewhere, especially not in the 'busy-ness' that is 'worshipped' by society these days.

*Willow*