This is a paradox of our own time. We have, relative to at least our recent past, much leisure. It is possible, for example, for someone to make a best seller of a book titled “The Four Hour Work Week”. But we don’t know what to do with it. That same author seems to find himself now working 60 hour weeks, not just because of money, but because he doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself. He “meditates” daily for 20 minutes or so, because it “sharpens his mind”. It is a best practice of high achievers.
I read many billionaires are now micro-dosing with LSD to make them more “creative”. Creative to what purpose? Amassing another billion? A fifth billion? Becoming the wealthiest man in the world? Why? What does this get, if not leisure? I get that making money is a game to them, that it is autotelic, but on a deep level is such play an important part of life? They could get the same satisfaction surfing, without needing to be cuthroat, as so many are. There is not just a play element, but a power element, and the thirst for power is inherently sick.
Such people cannot be role models. They have no idea what to do with life. Whatever they are focused on, it is not learning how to love and be loved, how to relax deeply, and how to get at the deep and rich spirit of each and every day, which to my mind and heart are the points of life, and which I, in my own way, pursue each day. I still ache everywhere, and I still have much work to do, but I am on the path much more than any billionaire, or even most millionaires you might read about.
What to do with time? That it can be wasted is clear, but what constitutes the best and highest use is made no more clear by the current passion among many for the Stoics.
Socrates, for his part, considered “philosophy”–the love of Truth–the highest use of time. And he ended his life only able to say he knew nothing. Is this really the Summum Bonum upon which to base the edifice of our civilization? That, or the deconstruction of the notion of truth, and a following obsession with material well being, or lunatic schemes of social engineering, in which men become at best herd animals?
The answer is in your body. It is not in your mind, unless by mind we intend the integrated heart and mind conjured by such words as the Hindi “Mun”.
I continue to see stupid people. It is my curse. Perhaps I am stupid, too. I am willing to consider that. But my body tells me I am on the right, if difficult, path.