Wisdom » Reflections

Spending Time Usefully

One evening I slipped into contemplation on the topic of "spending time usefully". I could not say I had heard such a phrase for the first time, but I had never thought through to the very core about the meaning of this verbal pun, nor about what it truly means to spend time usefully. Usefully for whom? For oneself? For oneself, any time spent will have been spent usefully. A different story, perhaps, is if time is spent not in one's own interests but in someone else's, gaining neither benefit nor satisfaction from it.

For reference, here are the ways in which one can actually spend time:

Read a book.
Watch TV.
Play computer games.
Lounge on social networks, in chat or IRC.
Eat or cook.
Drink. In a pub or alone at home.
Spend time with children (one's own or someone else's).
Devote oneself to the pleasure of collecting.
Knit, crochet, felt, embroider.
Work. Work a lot and hard. Work overtime.
Exercise or dance.
Sleep.

As can be seen, some activities require effort, some do not. Practically all are aimed at satisfying one's own interests or desires, thus generating satisfaction. Looking at the list without particular prejudice, it is hard to understand in what way reading a book differs from or is superior to playing computer games? Neither one nor the other creates added value or such value as would be useful to other members of society. Which cannot be said, for example, about knitting or excessive working. In this respect even drinking in a pub (generates income for the publican) might turn out to be more useful. And yet no - it turns out society holds some strange view of what is usefully spent time.

If we turn to folklore, we understand that virtue is work, and vice is idleness or unemployment. Although drinking in a pub or alone also seemed a vice to the people of old, because you see, with such antisocial behaviour no work gets done. What work? Lying in bed or reading a book or, God forbid, pointlessly exercising, the work won't advance either.

From a religious point of view, similarly to folklore, the terms virtue and vice appear. By this one must understand that some activities are tagged with the label "virtue" or "vice", which in turn, however you look at it, is very dependent on environment and culture. If in olden times exercising and reading books seemed like pointless ways to spend time, whereas working (for a very long time) was considered a very noble activity (incidentally, without demanding payment for it), then a century later the values shifted somewhat and now working long hours counts as a vice, while exercising - a virtue. One might even think that a justification has been found for lounging in pubs too - doing deals, you see - that is sacred. And why not, since a manual labourer, however productively they work, will not earn as much as some sharp-headed businessman cutting a deal and collecting his percentages.

Some might think that playing games is a worthless waste of time? Darlings, if you get the hang of it you can sell virtual axes to lazy Yankees for real money. And if you've got a head on your shoulders, you'll clean up on some forex exchange such that many a good fellow with his little spade in his backyard vegetable patch will for a long time nervously puff away wondering what they did wrong in life.

Another matter is how we feel doing one or another activity. One can pick from the catalogue of good deeds some "good" activity to which to devote a certain amount of time. For example, exercising. And if that process brings no satisfaction - then what? Perhaps people invented "useful activities" as a moral whip, so that there would be no peace and one would always have to be fidgeting about as if sitting on a tack, stirring oneself to do something, stressing and carrying on - perhaps starting on something more worthwhile? But maybe to hell with those moral values and do what at the given moment seems pleasant and brings enjoyment? Well, and what will actually happen if one lounges in bed for a couple of days? Must one absolutely be up and about doing something?

Go on then, dear person, work out which activity is useful and which is not!?