Defense of leisure Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Defense of leisure - Essay Example This becomes the only path to reach man’s full potential. The human mind has the capacity to think and reason out, thus, allowing it to reflect on what happened and what is happening in his world, in his life. Leisure’s purpose is to act on directing the human to the path of wholeness. It is not to be just relived from the limited functions that humanity can do or take but it is to â€Å"retain the faculty of grasping the world as a whole and realizing his full potentialities†¦to reach wholeness† (Pieper, 50). Leisure has been described as a ritual for humans to rejuvenate or replenish their strength to move forward and continue the things they do, or the task of their existence (Pieper 17). In comparison with the modern days, as development progress in human along with their cultures, leisure is now commonly known as a way to release stress and fatigue mentally and emotionally. The concept of how leisure eases the mind by contemplating on one’s existence and direction for wholeness has slowly diminished. One of the essentials for survival is performing the limited functions of being human, that is to work and to perform the tasks at hand in order to continue living. As simple minds become more sophisticated, the traditions and one’s outlook on work has changed. This is in relation to utilitarianism, in which, humans focus on the means to live rather than on the purpose of one’s existence. Pieper quoted Weber saying one does not work to live, but rather one lives to work (Pieper p.20). And today that phrase is not very hard to understand, or rather the human race has come to accept it as part of our existence and use leisure to take away every worry that we have and temporarily forget our problems. Leisure, in connection with this, is thought to be something that humans can do after finishing all the limited functions that one has in order to live. One then finishes work to be