John Lidwell-Durnin on Leisure

Our minds hum with words; they drop into our attention like nagging letters posted from ourselves to ourselves. Many of those that arrive during our busy hours simply say: 'Stop working.' 'Go lie down somewhere.' 'We hate this.' Our professional life, the letters complain, is peripheral to our core hopes and dreams; we must have leisure if we are to be ourselves. Leisure portrays itself to us as a space that can be filled by our own whims and inactivity— a time when we will merely have our being. If the capitalist system were a church, leisure would be its promise of heaven; a space that is by definition unproblematic, simple, and life-affirming.

But is it heaven, or is it hell? Even Prince Caspian, who must enjoy very good sleep (thanks to salty air and popularity), refused to set foot on the island where dreams come true. And despite its attractiveness from afar, when we are stranded on its shore leisure can seem a Dark Island where we are confronted with nothing more odious than the paucity of our own whims and our inability to abide happily in inactivity. Clinging to the rails of the Dawn Treader, we leisure-fearers return asking only that we never be made speak of what we did with our free time.

At the start of each age can be found a visionary, a saviour who foresaw our unhappiness. Ours is Bartleby, Melville's fictional scrivener. Once he has reached the limit of his willingness to work, he ceases, and sits in perfect stillness at his desk (to the frustration of his employer and co-workers). Bartleby does not aspire to leisure. He refuses his employer's offers of restorative walks and time outdoors.

Bartleby's discovery (and perhaps also his undoing) is his understanding that our waking lives are not, and cannot be, a gapless involvement in projects, some work-focused, others me-focused. When we over-extend ourselves in a project of any kind, we should anticipate, and be ready to accept, a period where our passions, interests and desires fail us, and leave us in a quasi-stupor that is anything but life-affirming or simple. We must cultivate a relationship with inactivity, and not become disoriented or panicked at how unlike work, or being at some task, our leisure actually is.

John Lidwell-Durnin is a freelance journalist. He is currently co-authoring a book on Education and the will to know. Visit his blog at: http://considerthegourd.wordpress.com/

Comments

[Drew Byrne]

To do nothing well must take a very, very cunning mind...with a bit of good planning to boot.

[genevieve]

Lovely! thanks.