The difference between work and leisure

A friend asked a rather... interesting question over dinner. What is the difference between work and leisure? Of course I couldn't give a simple answer, because it's a journey, not a destination. It starts with the most basic and naive explanations, such as...

Naive explanation: Work is boring; leisure is not.

Realize also that leisure can be just as boring, if not more boring, than work. For example, do I feel good when I grind for X hours on some video game, or when I constantly play with a mobile device? Contrarily, I could enjoy doing housework, or do not find it boring. Perhaps they feel that the distinction between work and leisure is fuzzy or nonexistent. How does one define boredom?

Naive explanation: Work is paid; leisure is not.

Clearly, I can get paid for doing things which are considered leisure... or I can do things which are considered work without receiving payment. I can even get paid while doing nothing. Moreover, how do we measure the value of work or the value of payment? If I do something nice for free and I receive favors for no apparent reason over the next several months, did I get paid?

Naive explanation: Work produces value; leisure need not produce value.

The same questions apply. What is value? And how can we measure it? It could happen that, for some given case, more value comes from a period of leisure than from a similar period of work. Then would we consider that period to have been spent in both leisure and work? Perhaps these are poor ways to look at things; work and leisure need not be a dichotomy. We might not even need to have separate concepts.

Perhaps time is wasted thinking about these things, and we ought to work harder and produce more value -- without fully answering what work or value means, of course. People like Marx went down this road, producing ideas such as the Communist Manifesto. (Which shows that this matter isn't a simple one.)

Offer any food for thought.

surely there is no ambiguity in the matter.

like they say about porn: you know it when you see it.

actually, comparing it to porn, it may be useful to define it as an exploitation of natural resources. same argument as with the "value" one you proposed, but I think "exploitation" is far more specific.

reply to post by Tadeusz


Its this type of thinking that has turned me into a hobbyist.

I have worked alot of jobs. Some payed better than others, some I have enjoyed more than others but I have never had a JOB or WORK that I fully enjoyed. I mean jobs that have been easy, good money for little simple work.. its still selling your time and your time is priceless.

Working on the carnival for a few years spoiled me, I saw how easy it was to make money if your only willing to be a little deceptional. I drank while I was doing it so my moral compass was off but at the end of one season I quit drinking and couldn't go back to doing it, mustless a sucker job that I would dislike even more than that for much less money..

Its all about figuring out what you like doing that can be lucrative.

Luckily I have found a few of those types of hobbies. Work is for slaves, jobs are for sheep and if someone wants to reply "but I have to feed my kids!" yeah, because your a slave to your own responsibilities that you didn't think out beforehand.

Is there a difference?

Can i not work at my own leisure?

By work you mean working a "job".

Jobs are an artificial construct of capitalism. Capitalism started when land owners changed the laws so that people could not use the land to live off, so they were forced to work "jobs" supplied by the land owners, making the land owners rich from exploiting labour.

Basically the land owners took away the autonomy of none-land owners.

Originally posted by 1/2 Nephilim
Its this type of thinking that has turned me into a hobbyist.

I have worked alot of jobs. Some payed better than others, some I have enjoyed more than others but I have never had a JOB or WORK that I fully enjoyed. I mean jobs that have been easy, good money for little simple work.. its still selling your time and your time is priceless.

Working on the carnival for a few years spoiled me, I saw how easy it was to make money if your only willing to be a little deceptional. I drank while I was doing it so my moral compass was off but at the end of one season I quit drinking and couldn't go back to doing it, mustless a sucker job that I would dislike even more than that for much less money..

Its all about figuring out what you like doing that can be lucrative.

Luckily I have found a few of those types of hobbies. Work is for slaves, jobs are for sheep and if someone wants to reply "but I have to feed my kids!" yeah, because your a slave to your own responsibilities that you didn't think out beforehand.

Thanks for the response. But you can't expect everyone to be a hobbyist all the time, yes? If so then who takes up the responsibilities which need to be taken up, like producing the food, cleaning up the trash, and so on? Then we would have a division between the "hobbyist" class and the "chore" class.

Originally posted by ANOK
By work you mean working a "job".

Jobs are an artificial construct of capitalism. Capitalism started when land owners changed the laws so that people could not use the land to live off, so they were forced to work "jobs" supplied by the land owners, making the land owners rich from exploiting labour.

Basically the land owners took away the autonomy of none-land owners.

Getting somewhere. Yes, I did mean working a "job" because that is the most common meaning in these parts of the world. This leads to another naive explanation.

Naive explanation: work is what is done on the job; leisure is anything outside of that.

If I make my child do the dishes -- a 15-minute duty -- once a day every day, is that working a job? If it does, then it would be work. If it does not, then it would fall under leisure. But what if my child were willing to do just that without my asking? Then it would definitely fall under leisure, correct?

Then let's say you are growing a vegetable garden. To do it well requires at least as much time commitment as a part-time job. But if you are doing it out of your own volition, then is that a job?

So the difference between work and leisure is every bit as artificial as the concept of a job. I think we ought to break out of this way of thinking.

It's perspective, point of view.

Washing dishes is pleasurable ... silky bubbles, a nice window to gaze through and watch the birds play ... all while playing fork talks to spoon games.

Getting back to "work" on a Monday morning is much more pleasurable than the weekend spent under the car!

Getting back from that strenuous, exhausting, frustrating, hectic, schedule-induced, muscle-twisting, anxiety-ridden VACATION and back to the old grind ... pleasurable.

Work - means non-pleasurable.
Leisure - means pleasurable.

Originally posted by Trexter Ziam
It's perspective, point of view.

Washing dishes is pleasurable ... silky bubbles, a nice window to gaze through and watch the birds play ... all while playing fork talks to spoon games.

Getting back to "work" on a Monday morning is much more pleasurable than the weekend spent under the car!

Getting back from that strenuous, exhausting, frustrating, hectic, schedule-induced, muscle-twisting, anxiety-ridden VACATION and back to the old grind ... pleasurable.

Work - means non-pleasurable.
Leisure - means pleasurable.

So grinding on a video game would fall under work if it was not pleasurable. Right?

I personally agree that vacation is exhausting. Planning, going, potentially dealing with health issues, coming back, then seeing that everything is on fire when you come back But I would also say that "vacation" and "holidays" are artificial constructs of the capitalist way of thinking, much like "job". Food for thought.

Originally posted by Tadeusz
So grinding on a video game would fall under work if it was not pleasurable. Right?

Correct - it is work if it is not pleasurable.

In fact, for my hubby, it IS work to grind away at a video game.

For me, it depends on the game. Some I choose because of the "work" (mental or creative exercises I feel I need). Others are pleasurable.

To me it's pretty simple:

Work is anything I need to do to prolong/sustain my life.
Leisure is anything that I enjoy for the sake of enjoyment.

Preparing my sandwiches in the morning is 'work' but cooking a fish on the beach is 'leisure'.
If I lived a subsistence hunter-gatherer lifestyle then catching that fish would probably be considered 'work'.

Originally posted by grainofsand
To me it's pretty simple:

Work is anything I need to do to prolong/sustain my life.
Leisure is anything that I enjoy for the sake of enjoyment.

Preparing my sandwiches in the morning is 'work' but cooking a fish on the beach is 'leisure'.
If I lived a subsistence hunter-gatherer lifestyle then catching that fish would probably be considered 'work'.

We can always create artificial needs. We need money because money buys us food at the supermarket.

Now let's say I needed to to sell 1,000,000 units of a widget by the end of March because it's my job. But that would begging the question! Work is something I need -- and I need to do it because it's my job.

Originally posted by Tadeusz
Now let's say I needed to to sell 1,000,000 units of a widget by the end of March because it's my job.

...wouldn't be enjoyment for enjoyments sake then though would it.
I stick by the points in my last post.