Great works are performed, not by strength, but perseverance. When economic times and social life are not going as well as they can, the government usually steps in and does something to keep the people happy. In Constantinople during waning of the Byzantine Empire, to keep the citizens happy, great chariot races were held in the city. The best drivers became rich and famous; they were automatically elected to the Senate. You must not forsake the ship in a tempest, because you cannot rule and keep down the winds. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 11

In Central America before the Spanish conquest, they Maya developed elaborate games similar to basketball, which kept spectators busy for weeks on end. In 2016, disenfranchised individuals depend on education, sports, and entertainment as avenues to social mobility—academics, basketball, baseball, soccer, and popular music like Aaliyah, Britney Spears, and Justin Bieber absorb surplus psychic energy while alluring to wealth and fame. I never give up anything that I choose to do. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 11

However, depending on one’s perspective, one can interpret this in two quite opposite ways. One can see in these instances leisure being used as an opiate of the masses, or one can see them as creative responses to dangerous situations impervious to more effective solutions. The power of doing anything with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. A bystander often sees more of the game than those who play. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 11

The record seems to suggest that a society begins to rely heavily on leisure—and especially on passive leisure—only when it has become incapable of offering meaningful productive occupations to its members. Thus bread and circuses is a play of last resorts that postpones the dissolution of society only temporarily. Contemporary examples provide some insight into what happens in such instances. For example, many indigenous people in North America have lost the opportunity to experience flow in work and communal life, and seek to recapture it in leisure activities that mimic the earlier enjoyable lifestyle. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 11

Young Navajo men used to feel at their best when riding after their sheep over the mesas of the Southwest, or when participating in week-long ceremonial singing and dancing. Now that such experiences are less relevant, they attempt to recapture flow by drinking alcohol and then racing down the desert highways in souped-up cars. The number of traffic fatalities may not be higher than those sustained earlier in tribal warfare or while shepherding, but they seem more pointless because innocent lives are being lost, people do not choose to get hit and killed by drunk drivers. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 11

The Inuit are going through a similar dangerous transition. Young people who can no longer experience the excitement of hunting seal and trapping bear turn to the automobile as a tool for escaping boredom and focusing on a purposeful goal. Apparently there are communities in the Arctic that have no roads connecting them to any other place, but have built miles of roads for the exclusive purpose of drag racing. Many things difficult in design prove easy in performance. Persecution and discouragement depress ingenuous minds, and blunt the edge of lively imaginations. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 11

In Saudi Arabia the rich young scions of oil barons find riding camels passe, and try to revive their interest by racing brand-new BMWs in the trackless desert, or on the sidewalks of Riyadh. When productive activities become too routine and meaningless, leisure will pick up the slack. It will take up progressively more time, and rely on increasingly more elaborate artificial stimulation. There are many who have some recommendations, but who is there wholly unexceptionable? #RyanPhillippe 7 of 11

There are individuals who, confronted with the sterility of their careers, escape productive responsibilities altogether to pursue a life of flow in leisure. This does not necessarily require a great deal of money. There are well-trained engineers who leave their careers and wash dishes in restaurants during the Winter so they can afford to rent an apartment near a forest they love and relax all Summer. The first step leading to perfection, and real activity, is to wander through the World unknown, and subject to few wants. #RyanPhillippe 8 of 11

There are colonies of surfers on all the beaches with good waves who live hand-to-mouth so they can cram in as much flow as possible on their boards. Dozens of ocean sailors who spend year after year navigating among the islands of the South Pacific, many of them owning nothing except the boat into which they have invested all their savings, and when they run out of money for food or repairs, they stop into port to do odd jobs until they can replenish their supplies, then they cast off on the next journey. #RyanPhillippe 9 of 11

“I was able to throw off responsibility, cast off a humdrum life, be a bit adventurous. I had to do something with life besides vegetate. It was a chance to do one really big thing in my life; big and memorable. Modern civilization has found TV, nightclubs, and a huge variety of mechanized entertainment to titillate our senses and help us escape from the apparent boredom of the Earth and the Sun and wind and stars. Sailing returns to these ancient realities,” reports Ryan Phillippe. #RyanPhillippe 10 of 11

Some individuals do not abandon jobs altogether, but shirt the emphasis from work to leisure as the center of their lives. Ryan Phillippe describes the exhilarating self-discipline of his training, “If you win these battles enough, that battle against yourself it becomes easier to win the battles in the World. I made a great deal of money in life, but I realized one day that I was not enjoying it. I was not having the kind of experiences that make life rewarding. I saw that my priorities were mixed up, spending most of my hours in the office. The years were slipping by. I now enjoy my technology start up. I live where it is quiet and beautiful, and I write computer programs most every night. I figure that my own relaxation and availability means more to my family than material things.” #RyanPhillippe 11 of 11