Tim Wilson
Auckland, December 17, 2024
Busy. That is the typical answer at this time of year to the question, “How are you?”
Variations include “Super-busy” or “Crazy-busy.”
Such is the pre-holiday log jam: leisure in January is typically purchased with frenzy in December. Of course, leisure often descends into languor and a post-Christmas slump. Bills fall due. Family fights worsen. Drinks get bigger; behaviour slides, as does mental health.
Discovered last year, a new phenomenon surfaces: pre-Christmas burnout, recognisable by tearfulness, sleeplessness, and exhaustion. Someone once said, “Busy isn’t just what I do, it is who I am!”
Increasingly, this is not a seasonal issue; it is our way of life. Various reports suggest that we are becoming busier, less patient people. Okay, that last one was from the UK, but stand in any queue at any mall, and before long, you will be able to smell the cortisol.
The Basis of Culture
We are going too fast too often. And please do not blame your phone.
This diagnosis is by no means new. Seventy-six years ago, German Philosopher Joseph Pieper wrote a book called Leisure, The Basis of Culture. In it, he shows that the Greeks understood and valued leisure, as did the medieval Europeans. Leisure, Pieper contends, has been and always will be, the first foundation of any culture.
Leisure, according to Pieper, is the basis for religion. If that is the case, our new faith is in the frenetic. Only, that does not seem to be working out so well.
Modern populations are increasingly overfed, malnourished, sedentary, sunlight-deficient, sleep-deprived, and socially-isolated.
The disease is not Christmas; it is modernity.
Compare this to Pieper: “Repose, leisure, peace, belong among the elements of happiness. If we have not escaped from a harried rush, from mad pursuit, from unrest, from the necessity of care, we are not happy. And what of contemplation? Its very premise is freedom from the fetters of workaday busyness.”
Pieper maintains that our brave new world of total labour has squashed leisure. His warning: Unless we regain the art of silence, the ability for nonactivity, unless we substitute authentic leisure for our hectic amusements, we’ll destroy our culture, and ourselves.
So this Christmas, do not do more with less, do less with less. Put down your phone. Actually, go put it in a box, lock the box, throw that in a lake and go for a walk.
Yes, you can now freely judge all those frowning minions of earbuds. And if you have not seen someone in the previous eight months, do not catch up with them now.
Yet the absence of busyness does not magically create leisure.
As Pieper notes, it is about choosing reflection rather than simply eschewing the frenetic. When was the last time you went outside and looked at a tree, for example? The patterns of the bark, the wind playing through the leaves, or the texture of the grass below.
As Pieper said, “Only the silent hear and those who do not remain silent do not hear.”
Shhh. Merry Christmas.
Tim Wilson is the Executive Director of Maxim Institute, an independent think tank working to promote the dignity of every person in New Zealand by standing for freedom, justice, compassion, and hope.
