Leisure

Leisure is a very important component of our lives. We need it to refresh and re-energize ourselves. Regular routine work generally puts our mind in a groove. Thus we need to escape from it from time to time . Vacations, outings etc help us in this respect and they make the ennui of the regular life more bearable. However, the real place of leisure in human life goes much deeper.

Usually we are occupied in purposeful productive work. This is of course important. Our complex society has wide variety of demands and needs which need to be fulfilled for us to live comfortably. Thus we need to do purposeful work towards this end. However, I must say this is just one aspect of life. Nature on the other hand is not governed by our human needs and desires. It flows with its own rhythm. Hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes come, global temperature rises, people have diseases and die, epidemics spread all against human desire.
So, it is clear that the universe is not governed according to the human desires and fantasies. Our purposeful mind might ask to what purpose is all this ? Why is nature the way it is ? Why is there diseases and death ? Why do we have natural calamities ? All these phenomena are terrible and bad looked at from the human perspective. But, nature doesn't seem to care about all this. What to us is heat and cold to nature it is just the play of seasons. What to us is birth and old age and death, to nature it is the drama of life. Looking at this any intelligent observer would discern that all our human struggles and frustrations seem to serve no purpose if they eventually result in loss and death. Whatever we have health, beauty, money, sex is eventually lost and we die with empty hands. So, to what end is all our purposeful activity in which we seem to have lost ourselves ?

What is a terrible tragedy for us is just a law of nature. So, the question is have we gone wrong somewhere in our thinking ? Why doesn't our thinking align with the nature ? What purpose does the natural world have ? Or is purpose just a product of human mind divorced from nature ? It may be that we humans are imposing our own purpose driven thinking on the natural way of things. Nature doesn't seem to care about our losses and gains. What is a loss to one person is gain to another. The victory of one nation is a defeat for another. What is a disease to one is a business for another. When humans die insects and vultures flourish. When insects die they make the land fertile. So, it is clear that gain and loss are the facets of the same coin.

This being the case lesiure from purposeful activities becomes all the more important for us. What I mean by purposeful activity is all those enterprises which are underetaken with an object or agenda in mind. This leisure gives us an opportunity to look at nature and its ways more clearly. Normally in our purpose driven world we operate with an agenda to accomplish something, to conquer nature. The rest from purposeful activities is big rest for us. For here there is a possibility for us to cease our struggles and to familiarise ourselves with the ways of the nature.