How can we make time and space in our busy—and seemingly ever busier—lives for the life of the mind? Join our Philosophical Happy Hour this week as we strive together for a more balanced way of life.
For much of human history, the life of the mind has been a domain of the privileged few—reserved, mostly to those truly exceptional individuals (or at least, exceptionally well-connected) who early in life showed promise for intellectual pursuits. While others were not condemned, as the caricature often has it, to a life of endless drudgery and toil, the opportunities for higher learning were scarce. Resources and teachers were not easily shared, distributed. So too, the seasons of the year were unyielding in their demands upon the farmer, from which schedule followed all the other employ of civil society.
The technological advances of recent centuries have removed these impediments to study.
And yet, so few of us seem to have time for it. We work more than ever—without ceasing, under ever increasing demands. Why is this? And what can we do about it?
Time for Work
Among the preliminary questions we must ask: what is work? Do we distinguish work by its ends or its conditions? Is there a common characteristic of all work? Are there different kinds or degrees of work?
Most of us, that is, associate work with a few things: money-making, tasks we would not choose to do if we were not paid to do them, employers or bosses, perhaps customers or clients. But can our activities be work without these conditions? Perhaps we can unfold these questions by contrasting work with leisure.
But so too, I am interested in asking, what happens to time when it is assigned to work?
The Causes of Human Error
Often I have said that one today, in the world as it is, cannot find time for study (or for fitness, for that matter). Instead, one has to make time for these pursuits. Of course, we cannot literally make time, in the sense that some aspect of it stands outside of our control. But we can reserve some part of the day for certain activities, and not negotiate ourselves out of them.
This is, however, much easier said than done.
Balancing Life
Unlike physical balance, which ordinarily we notice as soon as we have lost it, the order of our hours and days can be tipped askew without our noticing. One easily slips into too many commitments, too many hobbies, practices, goals, projects—and before we have time to pause and reflect, find ourselves with no more time available.
One way to navigate a loss of physical balance is to find a fixed point in the field of vision. Locking on to this point can help us to restore our orientation, our relation to the surroundings, and our ability to move forward. So too, it turns out, in the balance of our other pursuits. Put otherwise, we lose our psychological balance most often when we do not have a clear vision of the end towards which we are moving.
Untimed Time
One of the most necessary things, however, to our sense of balance is a sense of the timeless. Activities should not always be counted in minutes or hours. Good conversation is one such activity.
So even though it has a beginning and, officially, an end, why not join us this Wednesday (29 July 2026, from 5:45-7:15+ pm ET) in philosophical reflection and conversation upon the nature of a balanced life:
- What makes something “work”? What are its characteristics? How does it contrast with leisure?
- What happens to our sense of time under the conditions of work?
- How can we make time for study? What benefits our pursuits of an intellectual life best?
- Amidst the endless opportunity for learning today, do the possibilities at times overwhelm us? Is it better to have fewer possibilities? How do we navigate the abundance of the digital age?
philosophical happy hour
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Come join us for drinks (adult or otherwise) and a meaningful conversation. Open to the public! Held every Wednesday from 5:45–7:15pm ET.
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