Work, Recreation, and Leisure

Work, Recreation, and Leisure  

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The great Catholic philosopher, Joseph Pieper, once said that "leisure is the basis of culture." This is hard for us to understand, especially in a country with such a large economy that is dependent upon the hard work that we Americans do. Nevertheless, we must try to understand what Pieper meant. By leisure, he didn’t mean to imply recreation or idle time spent watching television. Nor did he mean work.

This is what makes Pieper’s remark so difficult for us Americans to understand. You see, most of us spend our lives going back and forth from work to recreation, Work being what we do during the day, and recreation being what we do at night and on the weekends. For most of us, work is the serious part of life. Recreation is the pleasurable part.

This brings us back to leisure, which Pieper says is more serious than work, and more pleasurable than recreation. It is what makes us human: our faith, our relationships, our appreciation for art, music and beauty in all its forms. It’s what gives our lives meaning, and is therefore truly, the basis of culture.