Leisure is a strange idea. It’s the word that denotes ‘fun time’ as opposed to ‘work time’. We engage in leisure when we are done slaving over a computer / workbench / cotton loom / student loan application, for peanuts or pay checks.

The history of leisure has taken some twists and turns, and the word drifts in and out of use. Loaded with two hundred years of connotation, leisure is commonly understood to have begun its seminal rise during the industrial revolution as the culturally sanctioned antidote to protestant hard-work and Victorian sobriety. The nineteenth century saw the invention of package holidays along with the foundation of football leagues and the invention of Saturday as a ‘day off’. Free time wasn’t something new per se, but with machinery, work schedules and bosses, it was measured out and granted. It was a gift from the employer, who dictated time. New industries sprang to cater for this allocated free time. Now in 2010, the Leisure Industry controls a massive swath of the economy. Everywhere from shopping malls to cinemas to restaurants to Wetherspoons provide places to spend hard earned cash in the pursuit of leisure. With this, leisure has become a defining feature of how we spend our lives, time, money and also, to some degree, how we define ourselves. (more…)

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