A Highly Instrumental World
If you follow me on Instagram, you have probably seen my 3d artworks. Few weeks back, a friend of mine asked me, “You are good in 3d design, why don’t you pursue a career in this field?” I didn’t (and still don’t) have an answer to that question because for me, making 3d art is an end in itself since I do it for it’s own sake and not a means to achieve something else. Making 3d art is my hobby. However, hobbies have acquired an embarrassing reputation in an era that is highly instrumental. A hobbyist is a subversive in an age of instrumentalization. He does something for the sake of doing it despite that thing not offering any value for the future.
Moments before writing this article, I asked my brother, “What is the meaning of ‘time well spent (referring to leisure time)?‘” He replied, “To do something useful. Something that benefits you.” This is where the problem lies. It’s not his fault that he thinks this way. Rather, we all seem to have inherited this fallacious thinking - probably from the industrial revolution - that to spend your time in a way that it doesn’t produce any value for the future is time wasted. Rest is permissible but only for recuperation of work. Further, we are the type of people who don’t want to rest. We start to get anxious when we feel we are not sufficiently productive.
John Gray stated, “Nothing is more alien to the present age that idleness”. He further added, “How can there be play in a time when nothing has meaning unless it leads to something else”.
Elaborating on this qoute, we tend to view leisure time as a chunk of time which is meant to improve oneself in certain areas of life or learn new skills. We are in a constant pursuit of a truly productive life by hustling in our current moment to make a better future. The problem with having such an instrumental relationship with time is that the current moment loses its meaning. What is the point of postponing leisure until some point later in life when you won’t have any later left?
Redefining Leisure Time
We have more leisure time that previous generations. But we are not able to enjoy it because it we have started to treat it like another item on a to-do list. We started viewing time as something that can be used and the outcome was that we spend our leisure time to become more productive. The whole point of leisure time is to spend it for it’s own sake and not to achieve something else.
In other words, to involve in ‘atelic’ activities, as Kieren Setiya calls them. Going for a walk, meeting with friends for an evening conversation, or just gazing at the expanse of the universe as the sun sets and night dawns, are good examples of atelic activities. They don’t derive their value from an ultimate aim. You can always stop doing it but can never complete it. They don’t have an outcome and we do them only for their sake.
Leisure time should not be conflated with productive activities as it loses it’s meaning otherwise. It starts to feel like a chore.
Aristotle said that true leisure - referring to self-reflection and philosophical contemplation - was among the very highest form of virtues since they are carried out for their sake, whereas, virtues like going to war or writing a book are virtues because they lead to something else.
Going back to the hobby part, the derision we heap upon the artists or people involved in atelic activities might just be a self-defence mechanism to avoid confronting the reality that these people are happy in a way that the rest of, living highly instrumental and telic lives, are not.