Let us, for a moment, consider the ethics of work frankly, without superstition.
The quote above is from of my favorite essays of all time – "In Praise of Idleness" (1932) by philosopher Bertrand Russell. In the piece, Russell calls for a redesign of work culture and an increase in leisure time for all people, arguing that technological innovations of the 21st century render ideas about labor-for-livability mostly outdated, unnecessary and, more-or-less unethical.
I find myself thinking about this piece all the time – not just when I'm frustrated with Corporate AmericaTM, and not because I feel desperate for more leisure time (I'm privileged to have an abundance of free think-space relative to so many folks around the world), but because the essay generates questions for me not just on the quantity of our leisure time but about the quality of these moments.
If Russell's utopia were realized, how would we operate under a new leisurely paradigm? Would we spend all our time sucking on straw and reading science fiction? Or would there be natural marriage of ambition and leisure?
Leisure and Hustling
Like many people in my circles, I consider myself a serial side hustler. I love a blank page, creating *mostly* original creative projects, often with only tenuous connection to my day-to-day work that affords me the very opportunity. Sure, many of the skills are constants—verbal communication, writing, selling of ideas—but the leisure "work" looks very different.
My experience running Rewind Room is a good example. Does a microcinema pop-up constitute leisure time? A lot of off-hours work goes into curating and promoting my hustle. And yet, this outlet is restorative if not outright restful.
In his essay, Russell doesn't necessary address the question – but does discuss a rather funny idea that people wouldn't know how to spend leisure time:
It will be said that while a little leisure is pleasant, men would not know how to fill their days if they had only four hours' work out of the twenty-four. In so far as this is true in the modern world it is a condemnation of our civilization; it would not have been true at any earlier period. There was formerly a capacity for light-heartedness and play which has been to some extent inhibited by the cult of efficiency.
He stresses that education would adapt to a leisure paradigm, and in my mind, this utopia is indeed about a citizenship educated toward creativity and play, and less toward standard work roles. This doesn't mean that societal progress stops or even slows to accommodate more picnics in the park. Instead, I think ambition redirects like the flow of a river, into new and unprecedented territory that would be difficult to imagine in our current framing of work-life balance.