Leisure: Losing Yourself To Find Yourself

I must admit that I haven’t had any idea on what to write on. I usually post one a week, sometimes, 2, when I am alone with myself. Lately, however, I have been busy surviving. I just got hired a week ago after being laid off from my work 2 months earlier. During the first week I was in training. I come home not only physically tired but mentally exhausted. I tried to think of something to write, something that I feel. But, because I have determined myself to produce at least one post a week and time was running out (time did actually run out), I resort to thinking about what to write. I thought and thought and nothing caught fire.

Then late this morning, I decided to stop thinking, and began to feel, to observe myself. And there it was. I observed and felt that while I was focused on work that I took just to pay my bills and put food on the table, and when I tried to write, nothing comes out; at least, nothing worthwhile writing about.

In fact, I felt distanced from myself. I was not in touch with my inner self. My soul, if you like. And, as I spend so much time and effort focusing on a job, doing my best to keep it from slipping away, the more distant I am from myself. As I become used to that distance – and I guess like most of us are - that is, as I become used to being desensitized, the more I neglect to listen to my inner self. I watch T.V as a means of diverting my attention from my self.

Come the weekend. You would think I would now have the time for myself. It should be the case. But the week of work and training had me crave for the weekend, not so that I could be with and by myself. Weekend, to me, was the period in which to rest my weary body that has an uncanny effect on the mind. I felt the emptiness in me, and I’d tried to stay away from it. For recognizing its presence  would force me to come face to face with the emptiness. It may not be frightening, but it certainly was unpleasant.

But, then, I remembered that I had promised myself to produce one blog post a week. Weekend ought to be devoted to reflection and then to transfer my thoughts on ‘paper’ or on the monitor screen. Suddenly, I panicked. My muscles tightened. My palms were soaked in sweat. I was forcing my mind to fish for a philosophical thought worth writing about. In the end, nothing was produced. I would write; but eventually I would just press the ‘Delete’ button. And there I was, falling softly on to my bed as I was more than willing to be overcome by sleep. That happened for days.

Then one day, ‘something’ in me said: “Slow down, and relax and don’t think. Then you will settle down” Muscles began to loosen up a bit. It was pleasant, and the awareness of it made it even more pleasant. And, yes, peaceful. Suddenly, a thought surfaced: “Maybe that’s what leisure was all about.”

Leisure is not about passivity. In fact, it is an activity, but an activity without purpose. You work in order to get there. But leisure does not need you to get to where you are not, for the simple fact that you have arrived. You only had to stop, and to be aware of yourself, listening to your self, to accept the fact that you have arrived. But arrived to where? Yourself. You have eliminated the distance between your working self and the inner self.

Hobby, is one example of leisure. You have a hobby not only because you enjoy it. You enjoy because you are most real, most authentic. There lies your passion. Just observe the children who play for no utilitarian purpose except to play and have fun. They instinctively understood the nature of leisure. It’s only when they grow to adulthood that they have forgotten.

So beware of turning your passion to a money making business. It will only kill your passion, and you will hate what you loved most.

So find leisure to find yourself for no other reason or purpose other than to be yourself. In a busy world such as ours, in which our organized time determines our schedules, and lives, it is all the more important to slow down and relax your muscles.