On Feb. 13, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette chapter of the Thomistic Institute hosted a lecture from Fr. Gregory Pine, titled, “The Importance of Play.” He explained why it’s important to plan leisure time with a busy schedule, using his personal experiences as examples.
Pine studied at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He traveled abroad to the University of Fribourg in Switzerland to receive his doctoral degree in dogmatic theology. Dogmatic theory is the religious philosophy of analyzing theoretical truths about God.
Growing up near Philadelphia, Pine experienced snow more often than the University’s once in a lifetime experience earlier this semester, and got more days off of school and work.
Yet, by high school, the event’s novelty had worn off for Pine. As an athlete on his school cross-country and track team, he would practice even on the coldest days and hope to gain an advantage against his competition.
In his adult life, snow days would become an opportunity to catch up on work. He later regretted turning what should be leisure days into commodities that were “judged on the standard of efficiency.”
As a graduate student in Switzerland, he set up a strict schedule of working Monday through Friday. Pine’s primary task was writing his graduate dissertation, which he intended to devote all his time to completing.
He woke up each day for an hour of prayer and the community church service, followed by office work, a 90 minute lunch break, prayer and work through the evening. Every day was often long and tiring. Sundays were unpredictable because the church often planned numerous community events.
One of Pine’s work colleagues explained the cruciality of a leisure day because “when you have but one task in life, there’s a way in which it can consume you if you permit it to consume you.” His natural choice was hiking through the Alps on Saturdays. Pines repeated that the mountains saved him by introducing an aspect to his life he hadn’t valued before.
Pines explained that humans must deal with complex emotions and psychology. Animals don’t have the capacity to understand anything beyond survival, while angels live only in service of God, and therefore have no concern with anything other than Him. Humans, meanwhile, live in between the lines.
Pines referenced an analysis from St. Thomas Aquinas that the two most burdensome, constant aspects of the human experience are “sadness and duration.” People are so stressed with living that even the most trivial things are concerning like worrying about where you left your car keys or someone misinterpreting the tone of your text. Therefore, you must “create space between you and the inherently dread seriousness of life.”
He said, “Nature reaffirms good operation with pleasure… Play is good operation.” In order to devote yourself entirely to one goal, you must be able to take a break from it as well.
When discussing how to cultivate play, Pine explained that one must be careful to enjoy play with moderation. Culture creates art, but art eventually turns into entertainment, which turns into distraction, which turns into addiction. People are innately drawn toward addiction because we judge success impossible, and give up.
In order to combat that sensation, you don’t need your leisure to be successful, but it doesn’t need to be boring. It simply must be fun. Hobbies like reading, singing or hiking are great choices.
The reality of work is that you’ll never be able to meet every deadline perfectly. So, when you schedule your study break during finals week, actually take a break. Even if only for 10 minutes, rather than scroll on social media, read a lighthearted book or call someone that you had been meaning to call for some time.