[SOC]

I worry that I may be overdoing my visits to Hooters. I spent Saturday night there watching UFC on the tube despite all my previous writings about "bread-and-circuses." But it was fun until my ass started to rebel from sitting on a bar stool for all that time. Later, I would regret that time wasted because I could have gotten some reading done.



This dovetails into a larger issue that I have had a hard time trying to figure out and categorize. This is the distinction between work and leisure. Obviously, working your job for the sake of a paycheck is work. But let's say you change the oil on your own car. Clearly, this is work, but you aren't getting paid for it. But you would pay someone else to do it if you had to. The same thing can be applied to housework or whatnot.



What about exercise? Isn't that work? Or is it leisure? Spending three hours crafting a blog post? It seems like work except it doesn't pay.



The leisure side is pretty easy. Sitting in a bar doing nothing is definitely leisure. So is watching a ball game on television. Surfing is also leisure. Basically, if you do it for yourself, and you would never pay someone else to do it for you, this is leisure. But this would make running a marathon a leisure activity even though it doesn't feel leisurely.



It seems to me that activities should be aimed at some desirable end. Watching UFC does not qualify because there is no desirable end except to fill the time. That time would have been better spent learning a martial art. I think a better distinction is not between work and leisure but between the useful and the frivolous. Some activities seem useful such as woodworking while others are utterly frivolous such as watching NASCAR.



Watching sports strikes me as the most utterly frivolous activity there is. This would be followed closely by playing rounds of golf. The fact is that people would be better off playing basketball or soccer during that time.



A Renaissance man is simply one who chooses profitable activities over unprofitable activities. While other people watch television, I keep a blog. People ask me where I find the time to write so much, but I simply use the same time others use goofing off. I get the pleasure from making something while others get the pleasure (usually) from reading it.



I am overhauling the C-lifestyle right now, and I think my Hooters phase needs to end. I'm not sure what possessed me to start going there so damn much, but I think I have worked it out of my system for now. My goal is a total work oriented lifestyle in the sense that I spend all my waking time working on my projects.

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