The degeneration of leisure

How we may restore the American Dream

Chillin.

“And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he done in creation.”

Genesis 2:2-3

In my attempts to understand contemporary cultural phenomena, I often conduct etymological¹ searches.

(I’m not nearly as high-brow as this diction makes me sound btw.)

Through language, we forge an understanding of the world around and within. Words and the ideas they represent dictate both our waking experience and our self-relationship.

While conscious awareness is more complex than language, the degree to which we are capable of self-awareness—the depth to which we may excavate and order our psyche—generally increases with each word we add to our linguistic arsenal. By illuminating and integrating a previously obscure thought, concept, or sensation, we cultivate an inner clarity that renders us more whole, connected, and, consequently, powerful.

Indeed, it is in many ways this “inner order” we all seek . . . the peace we’re all after. And it is this inner order that helps us make sense of the world around.

“Every man has within himself the entire human condition.”

- Michel de Montaigne

Think of yourself, your psyche, as a sort of map, in that you are composed of various “places.”

While it can never be fully illuminated (since your subconscious spans much farther and wider than your conscious awareness), and while its borders are less definite and static than a typical map, its completeness—the degree to which you can use it, per se—is based upon how many areas you’ve traversed.

To create a map, a mapmaker might hike, boat around a coastline, or fly in an airplane above the landscape, ultimately to see the area they are mapping. In forging a map within, however, we don’t traverse the landscape by foot or plane but by words (since words are ideological vehicles).

Even though the external world may act as a mirror to our inner world, we can only become conscious of what’s within by illuminating it, by seeing it. And we do that with words.

The more modes of transportation we have, the more complete and accurate a map we may draw, and, therefore, the more we may understand our inner landscape.

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Language evolves with time. New forms emerge, and old forms are applied to new concepts in order to contend with worldly changes.

While most words maintain the essence of their definition in colloquial use, what a word is used to represent can, over time, stray from its origin. The most subtle adjustment, if untrue at the core—though apparently suiting on the surface—can yield profound differences in practice.

Consider, for example, the consequences of one interpretation versus another of a word in the Bible . . . Or better yet, how the lack of a suitable word for a concept may altogether render that notion alien to a culture.

Westerners, for example, have recently borrowed Ikigai from the Japanese in order to resolve the one-track nature of the word purpose.

While most may not be entirely aware of the fact, our relationship with language (or lack thereof) deeply affects our relationship with life. Even though the cause-effect is not always so evident, linguistic misunderstandings prompt practical, real-world differences.

i. The problem

I say all this to establish the magnitude of what I believe has come to be a terrible misinterpretation of a particular word.

Leisure.

“Leisure” stems from the French word leisir, which means “time at one’s disposal, or opportunity to do something.” If you ask most people today, however, what “leisure” means, they’d likely tell you it is a period of time in which one relaxes.

And if you asked them, then, what “relax” means, I’d wager they’d depict some scenario in which a person is sitting around, watching a screen (movie, YouTube, etc.), eating food, or “letting loose” by, for example, partying.

But this perspective also differs from its origin. “Relax” stems from the Latin word relaxare, which means “to loosen, open, stretch out, or widen.” And the word “rest,” which is often used today interchangeably with relax stems from the Old English word reste, meaning “intermission of labor, mental peace, state of quiet or repose."

While these contemporary definitions aren’t light years away from their origins, they have strayed just enough to distort the truth. The common denominator in the new world’s take on the word “leisure” is not any sort of opportunity nor a time to rest but a period in which one may consume.

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So, you see, we’ve conflated leisure with relaxation and relaxation with consumption.

How did this happen?

In all likelihood, it may be attributed to a mix of changing environmental circumstances due to technological advances and subtle digressions from the word’s origins to adapt to these changes.

In one century, for example, leisure is time to “do stuff” that’s gotta get done in order to maintain one’s livelihood—a perspective far from the conception of most today, that being leisure as a sort of existential pinnacle. In another, after, say, machines take over a series of chores that were before done by human hands, thereby granting individuals more freedom, leisure becomes a period in which people must find ways to “pass the time.”

This newfound freedom is, at first, a blessing—an opportunity to relax and enrich one’s spirit—more time to fish, paint, read, play board games, engage in sports, or, indeed, use one’s time wisely. But as technology progresses and marketers find newer, [one might say] more conniving ways to captivate their customers, people become subtly addicted to the vast swathe of products now readily available at their fingertips . . . And then, later that century (bear with me now), the United States drops the gold standard, granting the government the ability to print as much money as they want, degenerating everyone’s dollar, eventually forcing both parents to take up full-time work . . .

As a consequence, people become more stressed about the shrinking cushion that once provided a sense of volition and comfort, driving them even closer to these addictive and consumptive distractions that remove them—of course, only temporarily—from what’s become more bleak, more hopeless a reality . . . Except when they return, they’ve dug themselves deeper into a hole, having not used their “leisure” to do something useful.

And just like that, free time, leisure, which was once an opportunity, is now synonymous with a consumptive escape—and a futile one at that.

While there is no way to know exactly how these definitions strayed from their origin, I can say with certainty that many people today do not use their free time, their leisure, their opportunity, intentionally but impulsively. This makes sense, considering impulsive behavior (impulse and intention lie on opposite ends of the same spectrum) tends to be consumptive (rather than creative).

Ultimately, in their attempt to “relax,” most now give themselves to things that do the opposite . . .

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“Consume” stems from the Latin word consumere, which means “to use up, eat, or waste;” there is also another Old French definition, which is “to destroy by separating into parts which cannot be reunited, as by burning or eating.”

When I consider the two opposing universal forces—order and chaos—in the context of my search, everything makes even more sense.

Chaos, which is generally the force against which we all work [see the law of entropy²], is driven by consumption, and order, which is generally the state towards which we all strive, is driven by creation. Just as impulse and intention lie on opposite ends of the same spectrum, so do consumption and creation.

In giving ourselves excessively to consumptive habits, we are inch by inch granting chaos an increasingly larger stake in our lives. And even though chaos is inevitable and, indeed, a necessary driver of life itself, it is our job, our life’s work, to strive towards order.

ii. The solution