How Modernity Killed Leisure

Leisure did not die. We killed it.

We betrayed what was once nourishing and reflective, and our slander justifies the rocks we hurl at it.

Rest is decay.

Rest is sloth.

Rest is a waste of life.

But why? When did something so innocuous become so hated? Especially in my generation?

If I had to give a simple answer: leisure is the opposite of modernity’s ultimate good.

WORK.

***

On the days I identify as unemployed, I do a mid-week sortie into the City of London for some street photography, a quick lunch, or dare I say—jumpscare warning—for leisure’s sake.

‘City of’ is not my corny dramatization. This refers to the historic core, the ‘London within London’; a tight nucleus of business and capital somewhat akin to New York’s Lower Manhattan, and also home to our stock exchange and central bank.

It’s the City within the city.

As an outsider—relatively speaking—I always find it a remarkable place: hordes of suited men spill outside of pubs for a mid-day pint, blazerless interns forage for their slopbowl lunch (delicious btw), and bikes dart in between cabs in between buses.

Maybe this is unexpected, but I love it.

There is no ceiling here. The air of industry and dynamism has room to rise. Ambition can stretch its arms out. Every young spirit and accomplished senior; you wonder what they are working on, where they are going, their goals in fitness, in business, in life as a whole.

Even if these are romantic images in my head, I can’t help but feel a certain 'potential energy' fill the atmosphere and inspire me—I return home wanting to do better in all realms.

***

I tell this story to affirm that work is good.

Ambition is healthy and noble.

Competition is gratifying.

Hierarchy is natural.

I would sooner launch Hustler’s University 2 than become an envious wretch pulling down those with more potential than I, screeching ‘hustle culture’ as an insecure cope.

That is the position I write from.

And yet there are sectors of this world I hate, especially in how it smears leisure:

Financed BMWs and botted accounts used to fake wealth, fan illusions, and posture to strangers stuck in the same algorithm as you.

Squeezing every hour out of every day despite the obvious diminishing returns, in reverence of the productivity cult.

And most frustrating of all, the scorn for anything that isn’t wealth-generating: art must be monetised, spare moments must be ‘made productive’, and social lives are gutted—friends don’t make you money, do they?

The corporate class I mentioned tend to suffer the most, stuck in a grind of attrition, and often burning out under the hyper-competitive conditions, working to please a system that doesn’t know they exist.

Evil is the enemy because it’s the absence of Good.

Leisure is the enemy because it’s the absence of Work.

To simply believe leisure is wasteful is enough to suck the pleasure out of it, a result connected with depression, anxiety, and stress. Seneca would recognise it two thousand years before Microsoft Teams:

"Nothing is less the business of the busy man than living.”

Ironically too, leisure is no enemy of productivity, but a close patron; breaks boost productivity, or at least improve wellbeing without hurting output. The revered minds of history—the ones we’d expect insane routines from—instead lean to the opposite and affirm the value of leisure.

In The Gay Science, Nietzsche describes the American work ethic as “breathless haste”, and how “prolonged reflection almost gives people a bad conscience”.

“One thinks with a watch in one’s hand”, he continues, as if thought itself is a lazy sin that must be hurried along, leaving no room for spiritual untangling or cultural enrichment. It’s a small death of humanity.

More modern research supports his bitterness. Rest can ignite creativity, helps us solve problems, and ideally activates our Default Mode Network, the part of our brain responsible for introspection—perhaps your next best idea.

I see leisure as something to be earned.

I see life as a tango between flaming energy and deep rest, motion and stillness, war and peace, whatever you want to call it. The day’s work must justify the night’s rest, and a busy year ought to have a peaceful end. Work is married to leisure, and must never overshadow it as ‘more important’ since it is one and the same.

How do you learn to love leisure again?

Boundaries

Age quod agis.

“Do what you are doing,” says the Latin maxim.

This can concern two leisure-killing mistakes: multitasking and a weak work-life divide.

Multitasking doesn’t work. It’s like sprinting on ice: quick to exhaust, but with no motion to make it count. If the stakes are low and you merely want to fill the silence—fine—but if both activities demand cognitive effort, then you are fooling yourself, and all that context switching is killing your focus. If it matters, give it your undivided attention. Work or relax, but do not pretend to do both together.

In a more corporate tune, we ought to demarcate work from life like it’s an invader at the castle walls. If our guard is down and we let the emails, the buzzes, and the Monday morning malaise infect our city, then personal life ceases to exist. Our space for leisure, family, and boredom is conquered, and so you must raise those strict boundaries.

Boredom

Boredom invites reflection, but do you invite boredom in the first place?

Today we are bipolar: one mind is our own, and the other is content—an eternal stream of noise, voices, music, podcasts, videos, audiobooks, rabble, blah blah blah.

It never ends.

We are force fed ideas without ever getting a moment to chew on them, and what was once constructive is made addictive, like an IV drip we must drag around everywhere to stay alive.

Enough.

Pause the content flood and let yourself think for once. When was the last time you did that?

It’s tough as life moves online, but I try to reserve at least some moment of the day to have my brain to myself, free of a digital burden:

Go on walks without music.

Workout without headphones.

Do your chores unaccompanied by a podcast.

Eat in silence, and focus on every bite.

Make coffee a pre-desk ritual.

Travel with only your thoughts.

Wait in silence.

Meaning

"It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?"  
Henry David Thoreau, letter to Harrison Blake, 16 Nov 1857

In a quest to be productive, the hustler bros often just end up . . . busy.

He distracts himself with useless donkey work while jumping between whatever side hustle his Instagram algorithm dangles in front of him.

Again, there is motion without a vector.

Your work should matter. It should be fulfilling, such that every keyboard click and every pen stroke is a service to your personal mission. A handful of meaningful steps forward beats a blind scurry in the direction someone else decides for you.

At the top of Maslow’s pyramid is self-actualization—the ultimate need—a kind of personal clarity over one’s full, authentic, creative and psychological potential. Leisure is not an explicit mention here, but it often aligns with the ‘self-actualizing’ activities: deep learning fuelled by genuine curiosity and a creative spirit, often related to—but not reliant on—one’s career.

Leisure may not be “productive” in the corporate sense, but if it’s just for you, then it is worth every joule of effort.