Leisure, Philosophy, Tea, and The Good Life
Isabelle Gross
“Hurry up, we’ll be late.” My brother, Cyrus, urges me. He needs a ride to class. I quickly grab my backpack and walk outside, car keys in hand. The trip was uneventful. After dropping Cyrus off, I found a place in the school’s parking lot. I put the seat back, turned off the car, and grabbed my laptop to answer some emails. Unfortunately I did not have any wifi. Rummaging through my backpack, I found a book that I was supposed to read: Harry Potter and Philosophy. I grabbed a highlighter and dove in.
This may sound like a rather dull morning, and an abominable activity for spring break, but I speak truly when I tell you that this was a very pleasant morning for me. Armed with a half-empty mason jar of milky tea, I covered page after page with yellow blocks and black scribbles while the sun warmed my parents’ Volvo like a greenhouse. As lunchtime approached I looked up from the pages. Philosophical thoughts swirled in my head. “I need to touch grass.” Pocketing the keys, I walked up the hill towards the track. It was a glorious, sunny March day, and as the wind blew my hair into my face, I was perfectly happy.
Nerd and overthinker that I am, I often wonder what it really means to live a truly good life, and if that is even an obtainable goal. Reading lengthy works in my Conversatio class did not help simplify my conception of the good life. But afternoons like the one I have just described make me wonder if the good life could be as simple as a warm, comfy place to sit, a nerdy philosophy book, tea, and sunshine. Saint Augustine never read Harry Potter, but he did read many other books and he certainly had some ideas about what makes something good. Although he was a Christian, St. Augustine did not condemn many things in our world as evil, rather he believed that creation was inherently good (because his God made it). All things are good, but some goods are better than others. St. Augustine thought that the best sort of good things were reliable: the goods that he prioritized he called eternal, meaning simply that they couldn't be lost without consent. The virtuous person can have his muffins stolen, but no one save himself can make him less just. St. Augustine thought that evil was simply the failure to choose the highest good, and a desire for temporal goods rather than eternal ones
One of the eternal good that St. Augustine valued was knowledge. He thought that teaching and learning are very good things, saying: “[I]f all understanding is good, and no one learns anything unless he understands, it is always good to learn. For all who learn understand, and all who understand do what is good. So if anyone wants to find the cause of our learning anything, he really wants to find the cause of our doing good”(Augustine) .I like to think that St. Augustine would approve of my reading over spring break, although I would have the difficult task of explaining Quidditch to him first.
Some people might think that reading about the philosophy of Harry Potter (and more fundamentally, the fact that I am required to take two philosophy classes at my liberal arts college) is a waste of my time. Josef Pieper would disagree. He provides a compelling defense of the liberal arts in his book Leisure as the Basis of Culture. While many people consider the tasks of school to be tedious (hence why it is called schoolwork) Pieper tells us: “The Greek word for leisure…is the origin of Latin scola, German Schule, English school. The name for the institutions of education and learning means "leisure"’ (Pieper). There is something about the task of a student while learning that is quite different from that of a mechanic fixing a car, or that of a builder constructing a house. There is something in education that is an end unto itself.
Certainly, I will be glad if my college degree helps me obtain a good job, and this is one of the reasons that I try to do well in school. But I also read the philosophy book and simply enjoy it. Keeping in mind that “Education concerns the whole human being,” according to Pieper, learning about J.K. Rowling’s metaphysical view of the soul could potentially make me a better human (at the very least, the fact that I would read such things shows that I am human). Reading the philosophy book can help me gain knowledge, perhaps in more ways than one.
One reason that I really appreciate Josef Pieper is that he makes a strong case against our constantly moving culture of toxic productivity. Pieper deconstructs the value that we often place on effort quite dramatically. First he explains where this idea came from: it is as old as those of Plato, but there is a reason why Plato rejected it. Others have accepted it more recently, though. Pieper explains how Immanuel Kant saw effort and virtue. Kant emphasized the ratio aspect of the human mind that is actively searching for Truth: “When Kant spoke of philosophy as a "Herculean labor," he was only using a convenient figure of speech. For, in this laborious aspect, he saw a kind of legitimation of philosophy: philosophy is genuine, insofar as it is a "Herculean labor." The fact that "intellective vision" didn't cost anything is what made it so suspicious to him. Kant expected no real gain in knowledge from intellectual vision, because it is the very nature of vision to be effortless””(Pieper). This leads us to the idea that effort in and of itself is to be praised, since, “the truth of what is known is determined by the effort put into knowing it”(Pieper).
One might think that we do not really praise pure effort but this idealization of effort has in fact greatly colored our view of virtue. If effort is praiseworthy, then Pieper says that we begin to think that, “It is simply part of the nature of things that the Good is difficult and that the voluntary effort put into forcing oneself to do something becomes the standard for moral goodness” (Pieper). Think of the number of morality stories you have heard involving a person struggling to stick to her morals in a challenging situation. To be sure, it is quite commendable when someone refuses to compromise on moral issues, but it is not the struggle to uphold moral principles that makes those moral principles praiseworthy; the moral principles are good in themselves. Pieper invokes St. Thomas Aquinas in his rebuttal, reminding us that: "The essence of virtue consists more in the Good than in the Difficult” (Pieper).
The real problem Josef Pieper has with this idealization of effort is that it prevents us from entering into that state of receptivity, an openness that has the potential to lead us to greater knowledge of the truth. He writes: “The innermost meaning of this over-emphasis on effort appears to be this: that man mistrusts everything that is without effort; that in good conscience he can own only what he himself has reached through painful effort; that he refuses to let himself be given any-thing” He adds, “We should consider for a moment how much the Christian understanding of life is based on the reality of "Grace”(Pieper). And this grace, given by God, can be understood as underserved love freely given. The best way for one to seek for knowledge and for what is good and true, Pieper suggests, is not simply to struggle, constantly looking for insight. Sure, seeking truth should be a key part of a good life. But one must also at times simply be willing to see truth that is revealed, to contemplate. That is why I do not feel guilty about sitting in a sunny car with my book.It may not have seemed productive, but I was leaning, looking for knowledge in my reading. But I was also just content to sit, finding some insights that were of a different sort that I expected to find.
St. Benedict might object to the idea of a good life that I have just presented , saying that it does not contain enough prayer. Perhaps this is so. But I personally do not think that one could earnestly contemplate truth very long without encountering God. And though Benedict’s model of spiritually is not set forth for everyone, it is certainly a way toward the Good Life, Benedict addresses his message to: “anyone here who yearns for life and desires to see good days” (Benedict). And the silence of the morning we have examined as an example of the Good life is not unlike the silence of St Benedict’s monasteries. I was listening to the ideas of another via a book, learning rather than expressing my own opinions. And even though I was reading the philosophy book alone, I knew it would soon be discussed in my class, a community, like the monasteries of St. Benedict, that came together for the purpose of seeking truth and living the Good Life.
A high school parking lot may not be the first place one would expect to have a major philosophical relation. Yet that sunny morning connected some ideas for me. It is all well and good to read about the Good Life, but it is even better for ideas to be lived out, for them to become as concrete as the cracked pavement under my parents’ Volvo. For me, the Good Life involves constantly seeking knowledge and truth through reading and contemplation. I try to value knowledge and Truth like St. Augustine, and inspired by Josef Pieper, I try to be receptive to truth rather than simply actively seeking knowledge. In my contemplation and prayer, I try to have the humility and silence that St. Benedict wrote of and lived out so well. And in my personal opinion, learning, prayer, and contemplation are better when you have a cup of tea to drink as you seek the truth.
Works Cited
St. Augustine. The Problem of Free Choice. Translated by Dom Mark Pontifex, The Newman Press, 1955.
Saint Benedict. The Rule of St. Benedict in English. Edited by Timothy Fry et al. Collegeville, Minn., Liturgical Press, 1982.
Pieper, Josef. Leisure, the Basis of Culture. Burns & Oates, 1998.