Commentary on Leisure cont’d
c. Why should leisure be linked to growth? Because for a man – or for a person who wants to become a man, time spent not growing (in body, in mind or in soul) is quite simply time wasted. If you have a choice between some leisure activity that helps you grow as a man, and another leisure “passivity” that doesn’t, why in your right mind would you choose the passivity? Why in your right mind do you choose passivity? Because we do! And we do so for hour upon hour upon hours! Uncountable hours on a series that quite frankly doesn’t grow you in any way: it doesn’t help you understand human nature any better, it doesn’t help you solve any of your problems or problems of your environment, it doesn’t help you understand the world, or politics or history or medicine or law any better; it doesn’t help you become more attractive (in body, mind or soul) to your eventual partner, it doesn’t help you understand a particular culture any better… it just doesn’t help! It doesn’t grow you at all! And yet, in our daily schedule, that is perhaps the most sacred item that we are religiously loyal to. The same is true of many of the IG, pages, Twitter handles, Facebook pages and Youtube channels you and I follow. If, for example, you spend only 1 hour every day in passive entertainment, and you started this from New Year’s, then to date, you’ve flushed down 138 hours. Why would you invest 138 hours on something that gives you no returns?
d. Consider this definition of what a cultured or competent man should be able to do. It’s from a science fiction author named Robert Heinlein: “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
e. Do you find it an impractical or outrageous definition like I do? Is it possible, that like me, you find it outrageous because it is extremely rich – embarrassingly rich? Do I need to be more actively ambitious even in my leisure perhaps?
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