A Forgotten Time: Leisure
The Dancing Class, Painting by Edgar Degas
I stepped up on the small steel ladder. It didn’t tremble; the rubber padding kept it sturdy. I gave a pull to the rusted handles forcefully, and it opened wide. The distracted sunlight and my phone’s flash brought the light back into the closed boxes. I brought out a big biology book and a hardcover notebook and then I moved to the next cabinets for some old pen stands and a piano book. Somehow, unconsciously, I pulled out that piano book. Some things would be on my desk and some things would be going to donations. I closed the door with one hand. It was again very dark inside.
The piled up things in our storage cabinet do look las if they regularly visit their ruling time. They probably spend the whole day and come back at night behind the cabinet doors. They know their future; they would be just going to stay in the dust before any practical yet harsh decisions. But does that refer only to things or are there any chances to hit on hidden human traits?
We all might have enjoyed any specific creative classes in our school days. That one not-so-very-important class did not bore us or did not look at us in the tiff of judgment. We loved to be in either piano class, craft class, dance rehearsals, or a sports match. That atmosphere had something—something that was not forced, not even overly complicated. But what was the one thing that didn’t make it claustrophobic? Perhaps it was that smiling teacher, or perhaps it was our ability to understand that one specific thing in a simpler way; that thing was giving us the splash of genuine accomplishment. That thing was proving my/your happiness.
The Society of Behavioral Medicine shared a report, “Real-Time Associations Between Engaging in Leisure and Daily Health and Well-Being” and this report suggested, “…leisure appears to have a consistent within-person benefit on a person’s daily health and well-being; when individuals engaged in leisure, they also reported better mood, more interest, less stress, and exhibited lower heart rate than when they were not engaging in leisure activity.”
But how did this important time move into a forgotten stage? When did we stop thinking about that? Is it during our high school farewell party or in some long hours ago? They did not even leave any dates. But why did that one thing never come with our grades and goals? If we think about the answers then probably we could say that the thing is of minimum value in our busy schedule or that it might look way too childish or that it might not bring any scope for the side hustle. Or we could say that this could now be called ‘leisure’ and it is an overrated subject. But one thing is missed out. Our every single second can’t get paid or evaluated; our lives are not typical selling or reviewing material. We need constructive times to see what we really are without that illuminating wall of some roles of child, partner, parent, classmate, or coworker. If one could just rub off the dust from the forgotten happy tasks, that time could bring a new dimension of positivity. I call this time Ina*.
In Degas’ painting, that girl is perhaps meeting herself without the illuminating wall of roles.
(*In Sanskrit, Ina (इन).—a. means determined or anything that is powerful.)