LETTERS TO A YOUNG MAN

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 13, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 23.

LETTERS TO A YOUNG MAN

BY A YOUNG MAN

III. Amusement—Recreation

MY DEAR ROBERT,—

I promised in my previous letter to deliver myself this week on the question of amusements. My advice is very short,—Don't. Do you ask my reasons? You shall have them. Amusement, or rather the supposed need for it on the part of young people, proceeds from a false assumption. It is assumed that the young man's daily work is a sort of drudgery, which he goes through more or less mechanically, longing for the time to come when he can put his real self into something more congenial,—games, social enjoyment, and the like. The office is supposed to be a prison-house; office hours over, the weary captive once more feels himself free, his spirits rise, and he is a man again. No doubt there are thousands who have just this conception of what they call "the daily grind," and neither is there any doubt that these thousands never become indispensable to their employers. They are the kind whose places it is easy to fill. No, children may require to be amused; but not the responsible young man.

What you want to do is to put your whole self into your work. See it on its interesting and significant side, keep your eyes wide open, every brain cell alert and active, and the whole system engrossed in what you are doing. Do this thoroly, and you will never suffer from the vacant, listless feeling that craves for amusement. You may at times feel brain-weary, you may be physically tired, and in need of rest,—the sound sleep that falls to the lot of the man who does an honest day's work; but you will not feel in need of amusement. If you put your heart into your work, you will find it highly interesting, even fascinating. You will gain from it the same satisfied feeling that other young people get from their so-called amusements. Your energies have been drawn into activity, your mind has been absorbed, you have been actively and pleasingly employed. But you have the additional satisfaction, after doing such a day's work, that you have accomplished something worth while, that you have justified your existence. There is no more deeply satisfying feeling than the healthy weariness that follows useful toil, just as there is nothing so intolerable as the feeling that you have nothing really to do in the world, and that you could drop out without being missed.

But I would not leave the matter here. While I object to amusement, using the term in the generally accepted meaning as some light, frivolous mode of entertainment which will help one to pass away a few hours pleasantly, I do not in the least object to recreation, by which I mean some wholesome activity which will divert one's mind from the ordinary workaday channels, and at the same time do actual good in building up the body. Recreation suggests renovation, renewal of the powers of mind and body; it suggests pleasure of the kind that does not cloy.

How, then, shall we recreate? Recreation for an indoor worker like you should spell out-of-doors. It should be taken under the open heavens in sunshine or in rain. Such kind of recreation will do two things for you: build up your health, and make you mentally fit for the wearing cares of business life. Of course, if you were doing hard physical labor in work hours, then your leisure hours might very properly be devoted almost exclusively to mental activities. What a man wants in recreation is contrast. It is this that gives rest to overworked faculties, and brings into use those which have been dormant. It is because the amusement generally sought by young men so badly fails of meeting this requirement, that it is so harmful.

A young man, we will say, is working as you do behind a counter. He sees faces all the day, people are coming and going in a steady stream, and there is continual noise from the street. Such a young man's recreations ought to take him out in the country, where he can see the blue sky overhead and enjoy the restful companionship of nature. But where does he go?—To the theater, the variety show, the moving picture gallery. And what is the result? Does he get any real rest?—No; these amusements only further deplete his vitality, drawing still more largely upon the nervous energy, without giving anything in return. Thus the same faculties are at work throughout the period of labor and that of recreation, and the final result is nervous breakdown.

When amusement is sought in society, the result is not more satisfactory. If popular social gatherings were of a helpful character—which they are not—even then the late hours and unwholesome excitement would make it impossible to recommend them as a form of recreation. Time spent on such follies is worse than wasted. The average young man who goes in for the gay social round is in a very real sense unfitting himself for the stern realities of life, and is prematurely wearing himself out.

Change of employment is probably the best kind of recreation that a young man fully alive to the finest possibilities of life can give himself. It is delightful, after a wearing day in business, to make the chips fly, or to hoe in the garden. And for the man who is physically tired, but at least fairly fresh mentally, it is most interesting to pick up a well-written and well-printed book dealing with some of the intensely interesting problems that confront us to-day. Yes, it is fine recreation of the nobler kind to read the pages of Holy Writ, to follow the footsteps of our Saviour as He wandered over the hills of Galilee, to hear Him tell those beautiful parables so full of the sunshine and the birds and the flowers and all the teeming life of the open air. It is a great mistake to suppose that only light reading, such as the modern novel, can be recreative. The very opposite is the case. It is the books that most inspire us that form the best companions, alike for our tired moments and when we are fresh.

Change of employment has this advantage over recreation for its own sake, that it gives one a sense of production that is in itself inspiring. Gladstone used to have two tables in his library, at one of which he studied and wrote on political subjects, at the other on religion. When he had worked long enough at one to become tired, he stepped over to the other, and found rest in the change. Then at the end of each year he had something to show for these hours of recreation in the way of articles written for the reviews as well as increased knowledge of many things. And these tables were only to be employed in the leisure time of an extremely busy life. But he knew how to use the moments.

Many have found great delight in music, and it must be confessed that it stands high as an element of culture. Luther thought singing the best of all recreations. He believed that it had a refining influence on the character, while at the same time unbending the mind and bringing rest and refreshment to the overwrought nerves. There is no doubt that the harmony of sweet sounds possesses recreative power of no mean order, and that it would greatly increase the efficiency of our working hours if we oftener composed our minds with music.

After all, perhaps one gets one's greatest recreation from pursuing that which is or is to be one's life-work. The men who have accomplished most in their various fields of usefulness have been with few exceptions the men who literally enjoyed it; yes, who got the same kind of enjoyment out of it that other men got from their games and other forms of unproductive recreation. "While I am doing this" (plying the artist's pencil), said Reynolds, the famous portrait painter, "I am just as happy as I can be." Yes, he was happy, and that was one at least of the secrets of his remarkable success. And so he painted day after day, and found so much enjoyment in it that he had no thought of other recreation.

There was one form of recreation, however, that he did enjoy, and that was to meet Samuel Johnson, and Goldsmith, and other congenial spirits at some little inn, and have an evening together. Conversation was something of an art in those days. Nowadays it is not in fashion, and much is the pity. I mean, of course, conversation about something worth while. There is always some one who can talk about the weather, that inexhaustible subject; there is always some one who knows the latest bit of gossip; and most people can say a few things about politics; but of really helpful, uplifting conversation of the sustained kind, very little is heard in these days. The loss is a severe one. Conversation is really a

most enjoyable and highly educational form of innocent recreation. It should be cultivated. If you can once a fortnight or so gather a few congenial friends about you and talk over things that are worth while, you will not only have many enjoyable evenings, but you will as a result of these meetings, make steady growth in knowledge and in power of expression. Conversation carried on on a proper level is highly stimulating intellectually, and affords a keen sense of pleasure to the young man who has a mind and likes to use it.

Before closing I want to emphasize those forms of recreation that are the most help physically. You are not getting as much exercise as you need,—at least not outdoor exercise, and that is quite a different thing from exercise indoors. The next time you have a half-holiday, just take a long walk, say eighteen or twenty miles, and keep up a pretty good pace. When you come home, take a rub-down, and go early to bed. You will feel like a new man in the morning. Walks can also be taken in the evening. You may think that you have enough exercise because of having to stand on your feet so much during the day; but standing is not the same as walking. A man who is tired from standing, can sometimes rest himself by vigorous walking. Then there is also the run. A rapid run of a mile in the evening shortly before retiring is good for the whole body, and especially good for the lungs. Physical culture in other phases, such as the use of the pulley weights and of gymnastic apparatus, is also a useful form of recreation—useful in the sense of giving all-round physical fitness to the body, and thus indirectly a beneficial effect upon the mental powers.

I have written somewhat at random in this letter. I hope that in your next you will tell me how you are situated in reference to time for recreation, and also how you are getting along with your rather confining work.

Sincerely yours, L. P.