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Of the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune
November 22, 1958
THE MORE leisure time we have the more we have to do.
This is one of the great paradoxes of our time. Like a thirsty man spurning water, we cannot seem to get hold of the ease that's around for the taking.
Thus it is that the ulcer is almost epidemic, and heart disease and mental instability increasing.
You can understand why a person with a burning sense of mission, or with a goading desire for wealth and prominence, should drive himself.
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We are at the apogee of a mental cycle which demands that we do something incessantly, with activity an end in itself. If not working, we must play. If we sit down we must read, not for sheer pleasure but for profit.
Other permissible sitting-down activities are driving a car, watching television, rowing a boat, playing bridge or doing needle-point. We cannot simply sit down and speculate on how we'll pay off the mortgage. That is indolence.
WHENEVER I get one job finished and start groping for another, I try to shake off the mood by lying down. But it often persists. And when one, as phlegmatic as I, is beset by repeated unrest, you can be sure the malady is obviously widespread.
For a couple of months one time, after realizing that certain jobs listed for execution remained undone from year to year, I kept a list of "things to be done." This would stimulate production.
Instead it bred frustration and despair. Too many things marked for accomplishment still remained undone and the list only emphasized my ineptitude.
THIS PRESSURE to do things, this intolerance of meditation, does not, I believe, defy explanation.
It has come about because man's genius and productive capacity have provided too many things, too many facilities for recreation, too much sporting equipment, too many avenues for leisure that is leisure no longer. Competition for the sale of leisure-time accouterments is as fierce as competition for anything.
Competition, in fact, is scattered all over the place. One automobile doesn't merely vie with another. It competes with boats, television sets, power mowers, freezers, vacation trips. The refrigerator competes with the furnace and carpeting. Should you buy that shotgun or do that cement work, buy rose bushes or garage paint, golf clubs or a suit?
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The catch, of course, is that the day has but 24 hours, approximately eight of which should be devoted to sleep. How sad that nature made it so!
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Then we'd live longer--and have more to live for.
Copyright 2017 StarTribune. Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune. No further republication or redistribution us permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.