The waste of free time
I was so impressed by this piece that i thought i’d rather type it out for readers’ benefit.
Author : Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi
Book Title : FLOW
Although people generally long to leave their places of work and get home, ready to put their hard-earned free time to good use, all too often they have no idea what to do there.
Ironically jobs are actually easier to enjoy than free time because they have built-in goals, feedback, rules, and challenges which encourage one to become involved in work and lose oneself in it. Free time on the other hand is unstructured and requires much greater effort to be shaped into something that can be enjoyed. Hobbies that demand skill, habits that set goals, personal interests and inner discipline help to take leisure what it is supposed to be – a chance for re-creation.
The leisure industry that has arisen has been designed to help fill free time with enjoyable experiences. Nevertheless instead of using our physical and mental resources actively to experience flow and joy, most of us spend many hours each week watching celebrated athletes playing in huge stadiums. Instead of making music, we listen to platinum records cut by millionaire musicians. Instead of making art,we go to admire paintings that brought on the highest bids in the latest auction. We do not run risks actin on our beliefs, but occupy each day watching actors who pretend to have adventures, engaged in mock-meaningful actions. In short, we are passive.
The vicarious participation is able to mask, at least temporarily the underlying emptiness of wasted time. But it’s a very pale substitution for attention invested in real challenges. The flow experience that resuts in the learning and use of skills leads to growth; passive entertainment leads nowhere. Collectively we are wasting each year the equivalent of millions of years of human consciousness.The energy that could be used to focus on complex goals, to provide for enjoyable growth, is squandered on patterns of stimulation that only mimic reality. Mass leisure and mass culture when only attended to passively and for the purpose of flaunting one’s status are parasites of the mind. They absorb psychic energy without providing substantive strength in return. They leave us more exhausted, more disheartened than we were before.
Many leisure activities especially those involving the passive consumption of mass media are not designed to make us happy and strong. Their purpose is to make money for someone else. If we allow them to, they can suck out the marrow of our lives, leaving only feeble husks. But people who learn to enjoy their work, who do not waste their free time end up feeling that their lives as a whole have become much more worthwhile.
The future will belong not only to the educated man, but to the man who is educated to use his leisure wisely - C.K. Brighbill
September 22nd, 2005 at 9:55 am
I do not buy this argument completely, becasue sometimes mass media/entertainment can influence people in a positive way. A kid listening to Beethoven or Ilayaraja or Rehman or Yanni could draw inspiration to become one tomorrow. A person watching sports on the Television might be inspired to become another Tendulkar. And many more things. It depends on the person sitting and watching the program. If the person is a lazy bum, just wants to feel good like being on a dope, then it is an additcion and a passive process. But there are many I think who get motivated to create innovatively by watching the existing.
September 22nd, 2005 at 11:15 am
@suman
i think if a person sees a TV program and feels like ‘i should also learn music and do something like this’ and actually takes some steps to do it, then its really cool.
This piece does not address them. it actually enocurages them.
but passive viewers see TV not to learn but to kill time.
September 22nd, 2005 at 8:59 pm
If you have “sleep” as ur hobby like me, then whatever time u spend doing ur hobby is never wasted towards a celebrity
just joking
I agree with u Prabhu. When u involve in a creative activity, it increases ur capacity or self-worth
September 23rd, 2005 at 1:17 am
“The future will belong not only to the educated man, but to the man who is educated to use his leisure wisely - C.K. Brighbill”
super idha serila parkiranga paaru avanga kitta sollanum
September 23rd, 2005 at 6:43 am
@labdab
correct sir
@ganesh
adha dhaan naanum solren
September 23rd, 2005 at 7:13 am
Spending the Leisure time, once again depends on perception and interest. Certain leisure activities which are passionate ones for someone may be a ‘waste of time’ affair for others.. For us blogging may be leisure time activity.. But I know some friends of mine, who consider this as a waste of time.. so, it differs from person to person
September 23rd, 2005 at 7:20 am
@ram c
Valid point.
The crucial factor is the passiveness or lack of thinking about that activity.
Blogging is not a passive activity.
There is sdope for creation, interaction, debates, etc.
Watching 2/3 serials without any intention to make a serial of ones’ own is one example of passiveness.