Introducing “Sybarite” — a New Publication Devoted to Pleasure
Enough with the self-help and life hacks, let’s take naps and drink wine
Confessions of a self-described Sybarite.
I first heard the word “sybaritic” when a handsome law professor told me I was nuts for disliking my home town of Los Angeles. “The sunshine, the water, the sybaritic lifestyle…” he said dreamily while staring out the window at a steel gray Washington D.C. day. I nodded, pretended I knew what “sybaritic” meant, raced home and opened my dictionary:
syb·a·rit·ic /ˌsibəˈridik/ adjective. Fond of sensuous luxury or pleasure; self-indulgent.
I closed my dictionary. The handsome law professor was completely out to lunch. Didn’t he know Angelenos eat plain cans of tuna because “abs are made in the kitchen” or that they suck down green smoothies that smell like chloroform? They were nowhere close to the people I had met in Florence, who were just as thin and good looking, but ate gnocchi in gorgonzola sauce and took four hour naps.
Putting aside my professor’s delusion, I couldn’t stop thinking about the word, which derives from “sybarite” (syb·a·rite/ˈsibəˌrīt/noun, a person who is self-indulgent in their fondness for sensuous luxury). Turns out back in the…
