As I already mentioned in Post THE WALK AND THE LACK OF TIME-PART I, I consider that the availability of time and its administration is fundamental for the realization of any activity. There are many authors who have analyzed the concepts of free time and leisure, throughout history, among the most important ones: Theodor W. Adorno, Louis Althusser, Tommaso Campanella, Jean-Marie Domenach, Joffre Dumazedier, Jean Fourastié, Georges Friedmann, Luis González Seara, France Govaerts, Johan Huizinga, Vladimir Ilich Ulianof Lenin, Herbert Marcuse, Karl Marx, Margaret Mead, Miro A. Mihovilovic, Wright Mills, Frederic Munné, Martin Neumeyer, German Prudensky, David Riesman, and 500 other thinkers
I believe that these two concepts, free time and leisure, should be studied together, since they are interdependent.
We do not intend to propose recommendations of any kind for the achievement of an increase in free time or leisure, based on an increase in labor productivity, but exclusively to seek a motivation on how to use them through the WALK-RWD system, and according to the availability of both of them, outside the committed activities of each individual. That is, we will not focus on mentioning how to “build” them, but only on how they should be used to apply them in those activities that allow us to really enjoy ourselves and with real pleasure, free from social and work conditioning.
We must look for truly free activities that are independent of work, family and social schemes, as well as independent of the consumer industry, in order to organize, arrange and use these two times, free time and leisure time.
There have been dozens of definitions of these two concepts – free time and leisure – throughout history, depending on the era and the ideology itself, which bringing them into this space would be impracticable and not at all constructive, since one part of them makes them synonymous and another presents them differently and in cases even antagonistically, to mention only these dissonances. However, it is obligatory to start from their definitions that allow us to achieve these objectives of ordering, disposition and use.
Nor is it the purpose of this paper to clarify the confusion that has existed in the understanding of free time and leisure, however, we will start from the 2 definitions of both concepts, to try to be clear about what we intend about that motivation of how to use them in the WALK-RWD system.
There are differences between free time and leisure. Free time is that which human beings can dispose of outside of their work, family and social obligations, and which they are free to dispose of and use in the activities they wish and prefer. However, it is, in some way, conditioned by certain sectors of commitment. There is a direct relationship between free time and the needs, obligations and conditioning of all those sectors that compromise and overwhelm the human being. Seen as needs, we would have the following activities as part of these sectors: the physio-psychic-religious: sexual, nutrition, sleep, religion, etc.; the economic: work, transportation, domestic, etc.; the socio-cultural: friendships, recreation, holidays, games, sports, etc.; the family: paternity, maternity, education of children, holidays, etc. Notwithstanding this classification, the activities that would correspond to the free time sphere itself could be some of the same, selected in a freer way: fun, holidays, recreation, festivities, study, education of children, rest, outdoor walks, games, sports, etc.
Leisure is carried out within the availability of free time but that the human being carries it out with an absolute freedom to choose the activities that he prefers, that he likes, and that are not within those needs, obligations and conditionings, conscious or unconscious, of those sectors of commitment and overwhelming.
Free time is a concept of temporality and availability, a more quantitative than qualitative concept; while leisure is a concept of having full knowledge, both of taste and enjoyment, and of absolute consciousness of freedom, it is a more qualitative than quantitative concept. For this reason, in the exercise of leisure there is no rule, canon or norm that we can use in a universal way, because each individual must carry it out according to his desires and tastes, and always according to his sphere and intellectual torpor of freedom.
We could point out that doing nothing could fall into the basket of leisure, since that is what that person wants to do: do nothing.
Agreeing to what we have defined, according to my personal experience, we could assure that without free time there can be no leisure; it would be called otherwise, for example: idleness, work inactivity, indolence, unproductive activity, no work or unemployment, irresponsibility. The word leisure comes from the Latin licere, which means allowed, licit; in the same way, other languages use this Latin root to construct that word: in French loisir, in Portuguese lazer, in Catalan lleure (and oci), all those words have that root that expresses in itself their legitimacy as a right to enjoy that time of rest, recreation and fun.
In spite of their differences in quality, free time and leisure, they gravitate around three common practices: rest, fun and the development of the personality, which resound in a transcendental way, looking for the human being’s self-realization.
In order to transmit symbolically the suffocation of the present society, as for the availability and scarcity of the free time, I allow myself to present (infra) in the following pages, 3 plastic works of the series CHRONOPATHENIA, where we can observe clocks that are disconcerted and delirious for not being able to accompany with Mr. Time. They are exhibited in lightweight structures, with virtual assemblies, located where time has been passing with reluctance and ease. Their purpose is to highlight and confront the awareness of time used by human beings (the hours, the months, the years) by repeating these journeys through these places.
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There are many questions that come to mind on this subject of free time. Are the activities that are carried out in free time freely chosen? How much does the individual develop fully and freely in his free time? Does free time really allow the individual to free himself from the conditioning of society and from the alienation of work? Does the accurate and appropriate use of free time allow the individual to have access to culture? Does it allow him to develop personally in terms of his talents and qualities?
Leisure is considered one of the essential elements of human life, and the United Nations Organization places it in its Charter of Human Rights as one of its own, in Article 24: “Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay”.
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Throughout the various theories, certain semantic confusions have arisen with respect to these two words, about leisure and free time, however, we will try to differentiate them if we consider it necessary.
Lenin expressed that Free Time is the time dedicated by the free worker to rest and perform activities outside his work to improve himself and with his relatives.
The Epicurean theory held that tranquility of the soul is a necessary state to achieve happiness (Ataraxia). It recommended rest of the body and soul, for recurring times, to find inner harmony and happiness.
Prudensky said that Free Time was that which was not dedicated to work but to rest and activities for intellectual and physical development.
Munné, in his book Psychosociology of Free Time (“Phycho-Sociologie du temps libre”), in order to clarify the concept of leisure and free time, goes back to the Greek and Roman positions. From the former, he investigates this Greek ideal: the skholé: “it was not a simple doing nothing, but its antithesis: a state of peace and creative contemplation – dedicated to ‘theoria’ – in which the spirit was immersed”; which meant that they should have time to enjoy for themselves, disconnected from work. Skholé, -which its etymology means to stop, to cease-, originally its daily use was to be unemployed, to have free time for oneself.
This position of skholé was not adopted by the Romans – with the exception of Zeno and his Stoicism (Future Post WALKING AND THE STOICS) – but that free time was defined in their otium, “as time for rest of the body and recreation of the spirit, necessary to rededicate oneself – once recovered – to work or public service”. According to Munné, he considers that the freedom of the individual, inside and outside working time, plays a determining role for the exercise of leisure (Posts EFFICIENCY AND PRODUCTIVITY IN OTHER FIELDS and THE SYSTEM CAN BE INCORPORATED TO COMPANIES). “Leisure is time left over and free from work; that is, time that is not paid and therefore not sold to work, that belongs to the individual and in which he or she can act spontaneously through freedom of choice”. In accordance with this, if we analyze the question from the point of view of work, the time when the individual – man or woman – no longer goes to school, and making abstraction of the other daily activities, we can point out free time as that which the worker has since leaving his workplace, which he can use for any activity, and – in our case – specifically for walking.
Huizinga expresses in his book Homo Ludens: “Games serve as a recreation of work, as a kind of medicine, because they relax the soul and give it rest. But leisure seems to harbor pleasure, bliss and the joy of life. This joy, that is, this no longer tending towards something that one does not have, is telos: end of life. But not all men seek this enjoyment in the same things. And that joy is best when the man who enjoys it is the best and his endeavor is the noblest. It is clear, therefore, that in order to fill one’s free time, one must learn something and be formed [educated], but not with things that are learned by necessity of work, but by themselves. For this reason the ancestors have counted [including] music in the [paideia] – education, training, culture – as something that is not necessary or even useful, as is, for example, reading and writing, but that serves only to enjoy during leisure time.”
Let’s head towards our goal. It will certainly help us to discover our own world of walking, if we become more aware of the concept of free time and leisure as well. Free time is the time we look for, try to have, to carry out activities that are not compulsory (or imposed), or also, time dedicated to rest and distraction; and leisure is an essential and vital behavior of the human being, in which he feels a freedom to do or not to do, but it is not a synonym of laziness, negligence, indolence or disinterest, or to waste time. (Post WALK, DO NOT PROCRASTINE, DO IT NOW)
We must orient ourselves psychologically towards discovering and highlighting our free time. We often do this in correspondence with our leisure time. For both, freedom of decision and action, is the determining factor in achieving effectiveness. (Future Post A GOOD WALKING AND A GOOD BREAKFAST)
Regarding the category of time that we will deal with in this post, free time, there are various theories, from the sociological and psychological point of view that have been formulated around this concept. Basically, I am interested in highlighting its characteristics in relation to walking. But first we will present some definitions and clarifications about free time, in order not to get confused in the comments about these theories.
– Free time is the time available to develop leisure, distractions and spiritual activities such as art, religiosity, etc.
– Free Time is the time available to enjoy the surplus produced in productive activities, whether paid or unpaid, and to seek full development, either individually or collectively.
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Leisure must be considered as the time that the individual allocates for his rest and relaxation, even if he chooses to develop certain activities but without an obligation, but prefers them for pleasure.
Perhaps it is the obligation that differentiates leisure from other activities that are carried out outside the committed and overwhelming sectors that we have pointed out, and which the individual is obliged to carry out: domestic work, religious activities, social and cultural life, care and education of family members, festivities, etc.
Leisure would thus be governed by freedom -full or not, conditioned or not- and the taste of a person to choose the development of any activity, and not feel obliged to carry it out.
Thus, leisure is a response of denial both to compulsory work (paid or not) and to those other committed activities, such as those we have pointed out: family, religious, civic, social, sports, educational, festive, etc.
For the individual, the practice of leisure is indispensable, within free time, because it allows him/her: a) To be himself/herself and to affirm him/herself; b) To develop an important part of his/her personality; c) To develop and expand his/her creative capacity; d) To compensate the imbalance generated by normal (daily) fatigue and that of total exhaustion, achieving physical and mental rest, by distracting him/herself through games, amusements, hobbies, walks, etc. In summary, LEISURE allows, provokes, forges, develops and affirms the individuality and character of the human being within the WALK-RWD system, practicing it in an integral way, reading, writing or drawing, while walking.
We have to be relatively careful about the way and use of both free time and leisure time, not to transform them into “temporary spaces” that are retracted into an alternative everyday life, because they can become something existential in our lives, as a compulsory action. I must insist that we must use our free time with a self-defined freedom, without conditionings, and that the activities we develop, within that time, are carried out with taste and passion (Post LOOKING FOR PASSION IN THE REALIZATION OF THINGS, WHILE WE WALK).
Regarding leisure time, we recommend in the same way, whether it is about activities to develop and improve the personality, to compensate the imbalance caused by fatigue, or to flourish and expand the creative capacity; we should always select those actions that we carry out with passion. Here again, we should be creative and not fall into repetition (forced and routine activities) which could generate – again, in its case – states of depression, which is nothing more than boredom or pathological boredom. [TAEDIUM VITAE: Boredom of life. Taedium vitae is usually the consequence of an inactive life without object, without meaning (V. Frankl)].
Now, what is our path to develop in order to freely dispose of our free time? Although it is true that the great majority of us feel that we do not have enough free time (Post THE WALK AND THE LACK OF TIME. PART I), we must analyze our position from the point of view of the mood and conditioning that we have every time we have the idea (disposition?) of walking.
As we have been able to understand, we find ourselves in a serious problem when we feel that we don’t have enough free time and in that way we justify not giving our organism a deserved comfort that it obtains through the WALK-RWD system, complementing walking with reading, writing and drawing, besides the great variety of other benefits that are obtained during its practice.
The WALK-RWD system requires free time and leisure; in other words, we can separate leisure from free time and give ourselves the minimum opportunity to practice the system, in an integrated way. Let us think that its application is a symptom for a necessary and compensatory rest of the efforts and physical and mental wear and tear made in a previous period, measuring the free time that we use immediately.
Let the walking with freedom be the first link that a modern human being can forge in today’s productive society, regardless of the structure of the society itself and the type of production of goods and services, in order to initiate a process of his own – mental and emotional – to be able to meet himself, by going back in time, as far as walking with freedom is concerned, as he did thousands of years ago (Post HOMO-ITER, MAN WALKER. PART II). To reach again a complete development and to transform oneself into a different human being with the incentive of being able to take the first steps to experience an evolution by one’s own decision (free or even self-conditioned but aware). The free time destined to activities that will open the way for him to be more authentic in the satisfaction of his true needs (Post HOMO-ITER, MAN WALKER. PART I).
Specifically I could point out what I have described about the practice of the WALK-RWD system, considering free time and leisure, in sequence of the following 3 steps:
1. ORGANIZATION of free time and leisure
– The 3 structured activities in the WALK-RWD system, Reading, Writing and Drawing, plus the others that can be enjoyed additionally (meditating, contemplating, abstracting, creating ideas, clearing the mind, being in solitude, concentration, relaxation, etc.), while walking, must be chosen freely and independently from social conditioning and the consumer industry.
– To define them according to our personal taste, that is to say, to point out and select those that we can develop when we walk, specifying to them taste and enjoyment, assignment of time of accomplishment, periodicity and inherent satisfactions.
– To order the selected activities according to our free time.
2. DISPOSITION of free time and leisure.
– Make a personal plan on the distribution and use of free time, so that you have a strategy for each activity selected (Recommendation I made in Post THE WALK AND THE LACK OF TIME. PART I).
– Define some parameters of feedback as well as real independence from social conditioning, for an evaluation of the efficiency of the process.
3. USE of free time and leisure.
– To review the plan on a daily basis to assess whether the activity or activities planned are truly free and independent of work, family and social patterns.
– To review whether our inclinations are conditioned by the consumer industry. Possible feedback of the designed plan.
– Application of the WALK-RWD system that will have been homologated to the real disposition of free time and programmed leisure.
This programmatic sequence of the WALK-RWD system will take us by the hand to fulfill the 3 functions of free time and leisure: a) rest, tranquility and energy replenishment; b) entertainment, fun and the elimination of boredom/unpleasantness; and c) the free manifestation of personality, its development and the self-realization of the being.
To conclude, I think it is necessary to comment something about leisure and free time at this time we are going through, in this year of 2021. Perhaps we can or should be more creative by taking actions with a greater awareness of “how” to use and manage the free time we have, allocating part of it to the activities that we like and satisfy us the most, to the real use of our leisure time.
An important part for time management in general will be presented in the future Post THE PROPER MANAGEMENT OF SLEEVE TIME (floating time) IN THE DECISION TO WALK.
Are we entering into a new practice of free time, a freedom to really practice authentic leisure? Are we initiating a social change that will modify the lifestyle, and therefore the personal and collective use of social time, that includes new patterns of free time and leisure?
Regardless of whether the process itself will lead to a new model of life in general, we will have to be creative in order to take advantage of this circumstance and “build” a new category of free time and leisure for each of us.
This new kind of freedom we are experiencing invites us to think about it. Let’s analyze the binomials of: freedom-leisure, leisure-conditioning, work-leisure, leisure-alienation, leisure-consumption, compulsory activities-leisure, and let’s free traditional leisure with a new paradigm of personal development. As we can see before this multitude of discernments (dilemmas), this analysis will not be easy within practice. However, we will start working on a post future to advance towards this task (Future Post FREEDOM, LEISURE AND FREE TIME, IN A NEW PARADIGM. PART III), especially aimed at the probable (dis)stimulation or promotion of the WALK-RWD system. Are we approaching living in a free society, or on the contrary, an alienated society?
Really value you sharing this text.Thanks All over again. Jacki Righi