You need: atmosphere (thus the obsession with lighting), presence (the ability to be in the here and now and turn off the phone), pleasure, equality (“ ‘we’ over ‘me’ ”), gratitude, harmony, comfort, truce (the willingness to get together and not discuss controversial issues. Wiking lays out the principles of hygge quite simply - and simplicity is at the heart of hygge. The author, Meik Wiking, tells us that Denmark has one of the happiest populations in the world, which I believe is the result of two things: (1) The Happiness Research Institute, of which Wiking is the chief executive, is located in Copenhagen, so they have the home team advantage and (2) who wouldn’t be happy eating their namesake pastry? The movement’s manifesto, already a best seller, is THE LITTLE BOOK OF HYGGE: Danish Secrets to Happy Living (Morrow/HarperCollins, $19.99). Because Danes feel about candles the way Americans feel about cat videos and guns. Which is to say, there are a boatload of these books. Books on the Nordic concept of hygge have proliferated here and in Britain like candles in a Danish home. Is it any wonder, then, that a year like this has coincided with a fascination, bordering on obsession, with the Danish concept of hygge? (Pronounced HOO-gah, like an old-timey car horn.) Hygge roughly translates to “coziness” and “well-being” and encompasses an entire way of living that promises warmth, safety and, most important, community. It’s not even a question of loving our neighbor at this point it’s more a question of tolerating him. This, the most divisive political season in memory, has truly been the winter (and spring and fall and summer) of our discontent.
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