Guest Post. Re the Modern Work Week.

A fellow traditional Catholic “JH” commented the other day on one of my latest posts reflecting on the “modern work week,” aka “the grind.”  With permission, here are his own thoughts on the subject as a guest post....

Aside from the mid/post-industrial revolution period of unique, and novel, work activity, the workday of all ancients, aside from slaves perhaps, was far more filled with rest/leisure than today. Even one's walk to work was, in a more classical sense as expressed by Josef Pieper, *leisure*.

The present go-go-go reality of modern work methodology, still trying to recover from the post-industrial revolution attack on the human person for material gain, practically demands pleasure since it leaves no room for leisure.

Think of it in terms of hydration:

What's better -- sipping water throughout the day, or guzzling half a gallon all at once after nary a drop for hours of toil? Traditionally, one "sipped" leisure throughout the day. Now, we are expected to become parched of it until the weekend, perhaps an hour or two at night, maybe. What's the result? A problematic cycle of being parched, engorgement with water, and the outright slaking thirst when coming back to being parched. It's a recipe for disaster.

I don't think our grandparents' or even great-grandparents' generations provide a good model -- especially when dealing with a so-called Protestant-Work-Ethic culture at large. I think we need to look further back, prior to the coal and steam powered destruction of society, beyond the sea, to the cultures which built not only empires, but beauty. We can't go back, but we can emulate as much as possible. How, though, is according to each man's capability and particular situation.