I’ve wondered and pondered existentially here on more than one occasion. What is the role in our lives of pursuits outside of work? What is their priority? What does “work-life balance” even mean?
And then, in the Atlantic, Arthur Brooks writes:
Doing leisure well will generate the sort of growth in our well-being that work cannot provide. We need to take the time to dwell on life’s big questions without distraction, to learn to appreciate what is beautiful, to transcend our workaday lives and consider what is divine.
Leisure, in other words, is far from the modern notion of just chillin’. It is a serious business, and if you don’t do leisure well, you will never find life’s full meaning. Properly understood, leisure is the work you do for yourself as a person without an economic compulsion driving you. For Pieper, this work of leisure—no contradiction, in his view—would not involve such “acediac” activities as scrolling social media and chuckling at memes, getting drunk, or binge-streaming some show. Rather, true leisure would involve philosophical reflection, deep artistic experiences, learning new ideas or skills, spending time in nature, or deepening personal relationships.
In this conception, leisure done correctly is equally important, and a source of generation, rather than a solipsistic, selfish pursuit.