The science is basically settled.
When you look into overwork and its effects, it’s not ideal. And this claim can be seen across the board. It is virtually impossible to find a legitimate study that makes the claim that overwork is healthy and encouraged. For decades now, study after study has consistently shown just how disastrous overwork is when it comes to human health. These effects, both physical and mental, cannot be understated. One particular study makes the claim that working long hours (55+ hours a week) is associated with significantly higher risk of stroke and heart attack when compared to those who only work 35-40 hours a week. Working 55+ hours a week also increases the risk of death from a stroke by 35% and heart disease by 17%. In fact, there is one study from WHO/ILO that claims overwork contributed to 745,000 (!) deaths globally in the year 2016. 398,000 of those from stroke and 347,000 from ischemic heart disease. Even if we put a pin in the studies, surveys and evidence, overwork is one of those issues most people agree on, regardless of the data. And I am willing to go out on a limb and say this is a pretty bipartisan issue.
Not only are people physically overworked, people feel overworked. Leisure, or, repose from overwork, is starting manifest itself as both a want, and a need.
So why is this? What is leisure? Is it just doing nothing? Exploring these questions is not only the purpose of this essay, but also the purpose of this entire project I am attempting to take a stab at.
But before we go further into what leisure is, we have to get a little existential.
Freedom in the Face of Pre-Existing Structure
As far as we know, we did not choose to be born. Not to sound bleak, but it is important we recognize this since it will help us compartmentalize where it’s appropriate. We are, in a sense, thrown into this world, and every day when we wake up we get thrown into the world over and over again. On top of this repeatedly being thrown into the world, every day we have no choice but to act. To oversimplify for the sake of clarity, we have to open our eyes, we have to eat, we have to move, this is the human condition. To live and to be alive is a strange sort of inevitable phenomena of which action and existence are inevitable parts. Because after all, just like not choosing is to have chosen, not to act is to have acted.
Because while there are certainly aspects of our lives that have been determined by forces outside of our control, like the historical epoch into which we are born, and our backgrounds, upbringings, etc. These all make up the Pre-existing Structures we have little control over but exist within everyday. For example, the Structures that push overwork onto us, are out of our control for the most part. (Though this doesn’t have to be the case.) On the other hand, outside of these structures there are just as many facets of life that are in our control, and the things that are in our control are the things we have responsibility over. And with this comes great freedom.
Since we have no choice but to act and to “be” in the world, the next question becomes; in regards to the areas of our lives we can control, whether it be in or outside of these Structures, what do we do? How do we act, what do we act towards? What are we “being towards”? Or in other words, when we act, when we do anything at all, what do we seek to achieve? What motivates us? When we get out of bed in the morning, what do we do it for? Teleologically, what are we going for?
On the surface, we tell ourselves we do things for a myriad of reasons, some of them true, some of them not. But if you dig beyond surface level explanations and motivations behind what we do, you find leisure.
As Aristotle says in his Politics, Book 8, Chapter 3: “The first principle of all action is leisure.”
Leisure as First Principle
So not only is leisure the First Principle, it is also the teleological end of all of our actions. Because even in our most burdensome, exhaustive, and exploited efforts, leisure is the grand motivator, it is the first principle. Within our work, is Leisure. It is not only the reason we take vacations, it is also (part of) the reason we get jobs. And apart from wage slavery, it is even part of the very reason we overwork, as contradictory as that sounds. We work for money, and the money is for various kinds of security, and the security is, of course, for a more effective leisure. Our hope is that by overworking, working 55+ hours a week, getting a second job, that leisure will be more obtainable.
The reason we strive for Leisure and the reason why, I believe, Aristotle holds it as such a transcendent ideal is because Leisure is mans attempt of growing closer to God. But how we categorize Leisure, and how we believe it is obtained, are about as backward as they could possibly be.
Societally, we believe that we must work in order to have leisure. This is the same rationale one uses when they say we must make war in order to have peace. You don’t need to labor to “earn” leisure, and you certainly don’t need to make war to achieve peace. These are oxymoronic. And while doing something like “bombing for peace” is contradictory, a caveat worth mentioning here is that we live in an illogical world that believes in illogical means to achieve its First Principle. But because we don’t have a proper understanding of what our end goal is, the means with which we use to get their will necessarily be flawed. That’s the conundrum we are in now. Ridiculous means get justified and put into place, and this warped process ends up making their ends unobtainable.1 This belief that we simply must labor our way to a virtuous life is held so tightly that some are willing to sacrifice themselves, and even others, for this cause. It is a warped way to view the world, one we are seeing put into practice all around us in real time.
But so what if Leisure is the First Principle? Then what? Well, the confusion at this point is two-fold: 1) What Leisure is (The Ends) and 2) How to achieve it (The Means). But it is only by properly understanding what Leisure is that can help us better understand how we are to practice it, and how we are to achieve it.
“Leisure is necessary … for the development of virtue.” - Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Leisure: Meaning & Freedom Through Reflection
So what is Leisure? Why would Aristotle, one of the greatest minds we have ever known, refer to it as the First Principle? Why do we work so hard for it? And stress so much over it? We find leisure as the great motivator because it is the only thing in this life that allows us the opportunity and the freedom to engage with our own existence, and not only to engage with our own selves and our own identities but also the world around us. These moments of leisure, these moments of voluntary contemplation, allow us to confront reality and our limitations. By doing this it also permits us to seek meaning, and let meaning find us.
Contrary to popular belief, it is not primarily about “doing nothing” (though it can be if done within reason). It is less about what a particular individual is “doing” at a particular moment in time, and more about the reflective process with which they do it. I must admit that I am finding it hard to define what activities fall under the leisurely category (if such a category exists), because part of me wants to say, well everything could be Leisure but then if everything is Leisure then nothing could be. But if any one thing is certain, I want to avoid promoting any kind of irresponsible degeneracy, since this is not in line with a logically sound thought.
In the face of Pre-Existing Structures that overwork us and grind us down, what are we to do? It might feel hopeless, but luckily in reality, it’s not. Because there are aspects of our lives that are in our control, and with this we have responsibility. And Thank God for it! What we do on the margins matters, and in this case, what Leisure calls for is much closer to a simple every day asceticism, a kind of mysticism we should practice whenever and however we can. If all you can muster is a prayer, then so be it. Like I said, it is hard for me to put into black and white categories what can and can’t be conducive for reflective leisurely practices, and this is something that I will try to nail down gradually as I continue to undertake this project. But generally, I tend to believe that a leisurely activity is any activity where one, to the best of their abilities, can avoid environments of exploitation (which in this world may be harder said than done) and truly confront their own individuality in a way that approaches a prayer like process of contemplation that both the religious and irreligious can sympathize with.2
As I type this, I think it might be easier to say what leisure isn’t rather than what it is because it can be somewhat broad and esoteric.
Leisure is not an excuse for irresponsible degeneracy or “detachment” in the name of “freedom”. It really is the act of taking responsibility over what we control that makes all the difference. Since leisure is voluntary action, a grasp at freedom whenever we can get it, it is truly a gift we have these glimpses of freedom at all. While Leisure is an act of human freedom, it is not arbitrary and it is certainly not compulsive. Compulsion undermines freedom and transforms freedom into constraint. Freedom, free of compulsion, is extremely meaningful and steeped in responsibility since the choices we make with our leisure not only shape us as individuals but also shape our relationships with others and the world at large. What we do, even if it’s just on the margins, matters. This is why our free time should be a time of purposeful engagement and connection. Compulsive “freedom” fetishizes human limits, but legitimate freedom is exercised by acting willingly toward the divine with an reasonable understanding of our limits. There is a big difference between these two.
Leisure is the purposeful and intentional engagement with reality that reveals our human quest for meaning, freedom and transcendence. It is a receptivity to Being and opposition to Total Work, both of these are examples of virtuous living that is in accordance with Reason.
It is through this very practice that we discover our true identity and move closer to our ultimate end - the Infinite. Which Leisure calls us toward.
Utilitarianism & The Necessity of a Universal Ethic
Now, there are a ton of obstacles that get in the way of Leisure as it is meant to be practiced. Some obstacles include overwork, Pre-Existing Structure, bad economic policy, ideologies, bad philosophy, the list is endless. But one comes to mind right off the bat: utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is such a dominant strain of thought that gets in the way of.. everything meaningful, really. It’s problem is that it defines the good in terms of maximizing pleasure or “happiness” (utility). This is, of course, not only overly simplistic but also completely wrong. We legitimately do not hate utilitarianism enough. Given its emphasis on pleasure, utilitarianism not only distracts but it misleads. And since pleasure is always fleeting, it cannot be he highest good or a First Principle. For someone like Aristotle, “eudaimonia” (or as I call it, leisure), is the higher, more stable end.
Utilitarianism’s focus on outcomes, like “maximizing X, Y or Z” completely disregards the intrinsic value of virtuous actions that are performed for their own sake. For example, acting justly is valuable because it is just, not because it produces or maximizes anything in particular. “Maximizing stuff” and “producing stuff” all sounds good on some level, but when you pull on its logical thread, you see just how ridiculous it becomes. Just like how we see today like laboring for repose, or bombing for peace, utilitarianism thinks leisure is something you have to produce, and because of this confusion about its Means, it justifies any means for its ends. (In truth, I still don’t know if means and ends are any different from each other. In the sense that everything in and of itself is an end already.)
But personally my biggest criticism of utilitarianism is its lack of a Universal Ethic. Because at the end of the day you either have a Universal Moral Code or you don’t have a moral code at all. If you don’t have a Universal Ethic applicable to all, you have some sort of ideology that is too dependent on individual preferences and individual agendas, and that is really just too random to be legit in any way. Utilitarianism is, at best, a multi-level-marketing scheme. It simply lacks a coherent account of the human good. Anything that lacks a shared telos cannot be in accordance with Leisure since Leisure takes part in a Universal Ethic. 3
I could write about this endlessly, and that is the plan moving forward. But for now I should conclude.
It must be said, Leisure is not simply taking a break. And “taking a break” is not simply reprieve from toil, it is the very space where we exercise our freedom in order to seek transcendence. It is an extremely intentional effort that allows us to transcend the constraints of our daily lives, to transcend the dominating ideologies and institutions we see all over. It is truly a miracle Leisure is possible at all in this life. By embracing leisure as a reflective, purposeful practice that is free from compulsion and exploitation, we align ourselves with a Universal Moral Code that allows for reasonable virtuous living.
In a world dominated by Total Work and maximization, the pursuit of Leisure is a radical act of resistance. It is a disciplined yet liberating practice where we realize our freedom and act accordingly.
To be at Leisure is to be fully human.
If you made it this far, thank you. This will certainly not be the only “manifesto” I publish, but it is a start. My aim is to always learn more, and refine. If it is not obvious enough by now, I am not a professional in any way, nor am I intelligent or trained in any way. One of the reasons for publishing this manifesto is that I want to publicly develop this more in real time. It sounds fun. This project will include continuous written reflections on whatever it is I am reading and what that has to do with leisure. Whether that is philosophy, ethics, theology, economic history, more economic history or more philosophy, my mind is always aimed toward Leisure and how we can arrive there on an individual and mass scale. Part of this public project includes me doing reviews of every book I read this year. You can find those here .
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For example, there are those who believe Austerity is the way to Leisure when in reality this isn’t as settled as some make it out to be.
It is not the purpose of this particular essay, and I know I will have to grapple with them in the future, but exploitation and manipulation are the two great impediments to leisure. Since 1) they obstruct our image of self and give us an objectively false reflection of ourselves, and 2) they both impede on our ability to self-realize. Self-realization and self-discovery being key ingredients to a true leisurely practice. I digress.
If any ideas here happen to be correct, it is because they are not mine. Any mistakes and flaws are guaranteed to be mine.
Influences, if they weren’t obvious enough already, are good folks like Aristotle, Josef Pieper, Maurice Blondel and Byung-Chul Han, among others.
Thank you. I will never get tired of recognizing your contributions. Thank you.
divine essay. you are, and have been for a long while, my favourite twitter blogger ❤️