This month Wired Magazine published a brief conversation between Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, and Clay Shirky, crowdsourcing guru and author of Here Comes Everybody. The two discuss idle time, and the growing trend to use off-hours time for community good. Americans watch 200 billion hours of TV every year, but with new online social media tools, that number is dropping and people are increasingly taking up hobbies that they know little or nothing about at the outset. These social media tools give us a way to use our spare time to become experts on interesting subjects, even if they have nothing to do with the skills we use to earn our paychecks. Afterall, volunteers built Wikipedia, that vast user-generated online encyclopedia, in their off-hours for no pay, and they continue to maintain it.
When I worked in theatre professionally, I had no interest in spending my free time going to shows. Even with free tickets. I crave variety in my life and working a heavy amount of hours indoors, sitting down, largely in the dark, meant that I needed to be up and moving in my down time as much as possible. I became a serious runner again, I took up yoga, traveled extensively and actively started to participate in community service projects. These activities now comprise a much greater part of my life than theatre, which leads to an interesting question: “Is there any merit at all in just having ‘a job’ that pays the bills and provides time and resources for other interesting activities to enrich our lives?
In this economy, this idea encourages me. A few of my friends currently struggle with this concept – the frustration of having a job that involves a less-than-ideal purpose. Interestingly, these friends stay extremely productive in their off-hours. They have side businesses; they write consistently; they have fascinating hobbies; they raise families.
At the moment, I have a good deal of down time. Work has slowed up a bit due to the impending holiday weekend and the summer season. I finished my yoga teacher training. I could plunk myself down in front of the TV and celebrate all of this down time by letting it remain empty. I earned the relaxation. But Shirky and Pink have me thinking about energizing, invigorating ways to use the time wisely to jump a few fences that I see coming up in the distance. Idle time, while restful, can fill a higher purpose, too.
The image above can be found here.
Christa Avampato 