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Popular Culture Review
Leisure and travel (Rojek p. 2) is a legacy of the epic journey or
pilgrimage. Mundane life is demanding in its highs and lows and unrelentless in
its burden to the worker. We are so bound by the workplace requirement that we
are often ‘prey to feelings of inauthenticity.’3
Conventionally defined as an activity that acts as complementary to the
vocational endeavor. As Rojen puts it, leisure lets us ‘get in touch with
ourselves’ and makes ‘status statements about ourselves to others . . . placing us
culturally in relation to others.’ As we move toward a post-work society, the
ethical framework to deal with this transition has yet to be fully explored and
accepted by our culture. ‘The main challenge facing students of leisure is to
devise ethical principles of private well-being and public responsibility which
are compatible with post-work society.’4
If leisure is a way of spending ‘useful’ time as a ‘surplus’ away from
work, we also now need to examine the role of play, which at a fundamental
level, is seen to provide a diversion from the occupational routine, a deviation or
respite from the continuum of the work treadmill. We seek to engage in leisure
time play pursuits to refresh our vigour. It gives the player a way to detach from
daily transactionary intimidations, the hazards of vocational proceedings and
decision-making, a respite from the exchanges and dealings in our hectic
working lives. In its many forms, we play games that exploit our otherwise
under-utilised physical selves—aerobics, competition sports, chess and other
board games, bush exploration, water adventures, car rallies, a game of cards.
We choose these activities for their ability to distance us from the
mechanical aspects of work. This distancing may provide the individual
alternate perspectives of life and life- strategies by the active sharing of leisure
interests with other individuals.
An activity which proceeds within certain limits of time and
space, in visible order, according to rules freely accepted, and
outside the sphere of necessity and material utility. The playmood is one of rapture and enthusiasm, and is sacred or festive
in accordance with the occasion. A feeling of exaltation and
tension accompanies the action5.
Play is a ‘free’ activity outside ‘serious’ ordinary life, ‘outside the sphere of
necessity and material utility. The play-mood is one of rapture and enthusiasm,
and is sacred or festive in accordance with the occasion. A feeling of exaltation
and tension accompanies the action.’6
There are also significant purposes for play quite apart from its
therapeutic and recreational functions. Play is necessary for development. Ideas
are playful reverberations of the mind. Language is the playing of words until
they can impersonate physical objects and abstract ideas. Play is an open-ended
willingness to explore the unknown.