RECREATION AND DISSIPATION
As has been suggested in the last chapter on Holydays and Holidays,
religious institutions have been the most effective organizers of
recreations sane and safe for the mind as well as for the body of man,
and recreation is one of the most important factors for the
preservation of human health. The man who does not take the time for
recreation and above all who does not know how to recreate is almost
inevitably drifting toward a premature aging of tissues, or often is
laying the foundation for an acute breakdown in health. Recreation is
an absolute need of humanity, adding to health, strength, efficiency,
length of life, and power of accomplishment. Instead of being a waste
of time, it is a time saver and above all a saver of suffering, mental
and physical, as the years roll on.
Dissipation is, however, the very opposite of recreation. What
corresponds to these two words in human conduct is confounded in the
minds of a great many people probably as often as the activities which
respond to those other much abused words, liberty and license.
Recreation, as the etymology indicates so clearly, means the building
up of energy, while dissipation signifies the scattering of it,
usually to no purpose. It is extremely easy for what is meant to be
recreation to become {133} dissipation, and religion has been the most
important factor in life in controlling the tendency to dissipation
which exists among men, not only from the moral but also from the
intellectual aspect of life. Religious motives have succeeded better
than any other factors in lessening this tendency and securing such
genuine recreation as would serve to rebuild men's minds and bodies
after they had been more or less worn out from work, and at the same
time tend to keep them from immorality and afford such relief from the
strain of serious occupation as would provide real reconstruction for
them.
Unfortunately in our time, just in proportion as religion has lost its
hold on men, recreation has become largely a matter of dissipation of
mind when not also dissipation of body. More and more barbaric or
merely bodily modes of recreation are preoccupying the leisure time
that men have outside of their regular occupations in life. It must
not be forgotten that the way a man or a generation spends its leisure
is the best possible index of the character of the man or the
generation. It is the way that a man spends the time that he is free
to use any way that he wishes which reveals what he is. It was a great
philosopher who said, "Tell me what a man does with his leisure, and I
shall tell you what sort of a man he is." We all have to work a
certain portion of our time, and often what we work at is not a matter
of choice but necessity. What we do during our leisure, however, is
dependent on ourselves and represents our tastes.
The recreation of our time reveals that people are ever so much more
interested in their bodies than they are in their minds and hearts and
souls. Very often the recreation of the older time consisted of hours
spent with all the advantages of outdoor air, exercise, and fine {134}
satisfaction of mind, perhaps in visiting the poor or the prisons or
the hospitals, or in encouraging the sports of children, or in
arranging for outings of various kinds in which the pleasantest of
social intercourse between friends and neighbors was associated with
such recreation of body as gave a good healthy weariness after a day's
outing. More and more these old-fashioned modes of recreation are
passing, and sophistication has brought in occupation of mind with a
lot of unworthy things.
Instead of taking an active part in what is supposed to recreate them
people must now be amused. Whenever this happens and participants pay
for the amusement, the character of the amusement degenerates because
it must appeal to as great a number as possible. As a consequence, in
our day recreation, especially for young folks who ought of course to
be actively engaged in sport and not merely onlookers, consists in
attendance at "shows" and games. The "shows" have an appeal merely to
the senses, they have not an idea lost in them anywhere; the music is
a caricature of real music founded on the fact--which the most
primitive of savages have always discovered for themselves--that a
rhythm appeals to men and gives them a certain bodily satisfaction,
probably because of some ill-understood interaction with the heart
beat. The main feature of appeal is really the sex element that enters
into the show and produces feelings. The lyrics are, if that term for
them were to be taken seriously, a crying shame, for the words of the
songs usually mean absolutely nothing. The rule is to take certain
words that rhyme, like kiss and bliss, and love and glove, and for the
rest to talk about the moon and some sentimental twaddle. There is not
a glimpse of poetry about them in any sense of the word.
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The attendance at games of various kinds in which people watch other
people exercise is a favorite occupation in our time, but it is only
the shadow of recreation. It is usually associated with feelings
aroused by the desire for one side to win, either because of betting
or some other sentiment often entirely artificial. Whenever anything
occurs to disappoint the desire, there is likely to be an exhibition
of some of the ugliest feelings of mankind. Men invade the field, take
up quarrels, and sometimes not only threaten but actually attempt
bodily injury of the players and particularly of the umpire. Probably
nothing could be more unworthy as recreation for human beings than
this passive interest in the exercise that other people take, and the
elevation of the contests of paid professionals into something to
occupy men's minds seriously and even arouse their feelings deeply.
More and more bodily interests are drowning out higher interests, and
prize fighting and wrestling command ever larger audiences, while the
sums of money that are paid for such exhibitions grow in size, showing
the importance of bodily interests to the general public. There is an
old story of Cimabue's Madonna causing the stoppage of business in
Florence in the old days, but the transport of no mere picture along
the street, no matter how beautiful it might be, would have any such
effect nowadays, though the arrival of a prize fighter who had just
won a heavyweight contest, if his coming were announced beforehand,
would almost surely interfere seriously with business for some time in
the neighborhood of the station.
Just as in the days of Rome when the amphitheater was the center of
attraction, recreation is becoming mere barbaric dissipation for a
great many people. {136} The cultured, intelligent Romans--at least
many of them were educated--went to see gladiators fight with wild
beasts or with each other unto the death, or to get a special thrill
by seeing the Christians thrown to the lions. The other shows they
attended were mainly the dancing of slave girls scantily dressed,
whose actions were meant to excite sex feelings. At Rome the women had
no virtue and the men no courage; they were interested in their bodies
and degeneracy had come. No wonder the real barbarians came to replace
their counterfeit presentments in the pseudo-refined Romans.
Even our mental occupations are very largely taken up with bodily
interests. Reading is supposed to be an intellectual diversion, but it
has become a matter of attention to sex and other bodily emotions. My
friend. Doctor Austin O'Malley, suggests that one of the most
important criteria of intelligence is contained in the rule "the book
that you like is like you," to which may be added, of course, that the
play that you like is like you and the magazine that you like is like
you. If our generation is to be judged by its occupation of its
leisure, the estimation will not be very high. Most of the leisure
time of men is spent in reading the newspapers. Indeed, it may be said
without exaggeration that the greater part of civilized mankind now
spends the major portion of its hours of relaxation over the
newspaper. News was defined by an old-fashioned editor succinctly as
sin. The definition has enough of truth in it to give us pause when we
consider that every one is occupied with the newspaper for an hour or
more each day. We want to know the last details of the ugly sex crimes
and the misfortunes of various kinds that have happened to people,
perhaps with a feeling that things might be worse for us {137} than
they are, but the suggestive effect is almost the worst that could
well be imagined, and the recreation of mind becomes a sad dissipation
of mental energy.
Religion brought the holydays, which were in our modern sense
holidays, into the year, but did ever so much more than this by
suggesting, organizing and encouraging such occupation of them as
afforded recreation for men and women in definite contradistinction
from dissipation. On all the Sundays and holydays men rose to attend
services and usually spent some hours in this occupation. Attendance
at religious services in our time has become very largely a matter of
duty, requiring considerable self-denial and control for its
accomplishment. The religious ceremonials of the older time were,
however, extremely interesting, and people looked forward to them.
They had to attend them as a matter of duty, but the great majority of
them found a pleasure in the duty because of the appeal that the
Church ceremonial made.
Various societies associated with religion in one way or another
organized the recreations for the afternoon of the holydays or for the
vigils or eves of the great festivals, on which there was no work done
after the vesper hour. The guilds, for instance, most of which
received saints' names, and many of which built chapels of their own
and were closely affiliated with the ecclesiastical authorities,
offered prizes for athletic exercises among the young folks, both boys
and girls, and arranged contests in archery, in the pitching of
quoits, in the old-fashioned form of hockey and the like, between the
inhabitants of neighboring villages, and then there were also
individual athletic contests of various kinds. Banquets were held four
times a year on the special feast days, to which a man was expected to
bring either his wife or his {138} sweetheart. They did not believe
that it was good for men to be alone in their feasting, and realized
that there was likely to be much less of excess and ever so much less
of a tendency to quarrel if the women were present. The banquets were
held in the afternoon, and there was dancing on the green afterward
for the young folks and games of various kinds, all of which were
meant to give the young particularly innocent enjoyment and bring them
together for proper matchmaking.
Religious authorities have always recognized the necessity for
recreation. Besides, they have always tried to keep recreation on that
higher plane where it may do good and not harm. Dancing, for instance,
has very often had a place in religious ceremonials. Rhythmic
movements of the body can add to the significance of even the deepest
thought. They may, of course, be reduced merely to the expression of
sensuality or constitute an invitation to it. David danced before the
Ark, and dancing has always had a place in the expression of religious
feelings. The old Greeks employed dancing to great effect, even in
their higher religious ceremonials. The great Greek dramatists wrote
choric odes which are among the most beautiful lyric poems ever
written. They were on such subjects as life and death and man and fate
and all the other great mysteries with which man is confronted. The
chorus, in singing them, danced, and the reason for the dance was that
it added to the significance of the beautiful words that had been
written. The Greek plays were staged as a part of the religious
ceremonial in celebration of the festivals of Dionysus; his name has
been translated by the supposed Latin equivalent Bacchus, but the
Greeks meant the god of inspiration and not the god of intoxication.
{139}
Religion then proved a source of a great deal of genuine recreation.
It emphasized the joys of existence rather than merely the pleasures
of life. It encouraged family participation in everything and found a
place for the children. There is a great distinction between joy and
pleasure that is often missed when religion is in decay. Joy is a
profound feeling usually associated with the performance of simple
duties and rather easily attainable by every one. Pleasures are often
expensive, frequently are followed by remorse, and more often than not
do harm rather than good to those who indulge in them, especially to
any excess. Joy, however, inspires human beings to the further
accomplishment of duty, gives a supreme sense of well-being, brings
light-hearted sleep and is very precious in the memory. Joys are
usually associated with domestic duties and religious observances and
the celebration in family groups of the great festivals. What religion
did in bringing joy into life is one of the most precious factors for
real recreation that we have.
The main feature of religion's work for recreation, however,
consisted of the development of dramatics. Twice in the world's
history, as I have noted in the chapter on Holydays and Holidays,
dramatic literature has developed out of religious ceremonials. These
ceremonials very naturally take on the dramatic form, and the
evolution of this in the course of time led to additions to religious
services which soon came to occupy so much attention as to deserve a
place and time for themselves, and then they were transferred to the
temple porch in the older time, or to the open space at the foot of
the steps, or in the Middle Ages to the churchyard or the green in
front of the church.
This encouragement of recreation with a deep appeal {140} to the
emotions and the higher feelings which at the same time brought
satisfaction for the intellect, proved of the greatest possible
service for health. Men need to have thoroughgoing diversion of mind
from their ordinary occupations. Such diversion of mind is, in my
opinion, even more important than exercise of body. The effort in our
time is concentrated on doing nothing with the mind, as a rest for it,
or doing something that is so trivial that it is supposed to provide
opportunity for mental recreation. Almost needless to say it is
impossible to do nothing with the mind. The mind will keep right on
thinking about something or other, and unless thought is diverted it
is very inclined to recur to the last worries and troubles which the
individual has experienced. The attempt to occupy the mind with
trivial matters does not divert it. To read the newspaper or some
popular magazine or a light novel will enable the person to kill time,
but up through the print will always come obtruding itself the worry
or anxiety that occupied it before. What is needed for true recreation
is that the mind shall be interested in something very different from
its ordinary occupation. This interest must be deep and abiding and
holding, or it will not prove so successful as would otherwise be the
case.
Some form of intellectual hobby makes the very best recreation, but
not every one has either the time or the money and above all the
intelligence to cultivate a hobby that will be absorbing in its
appeal. Religion, then, with its universal appeal, its deep touching
of the feelings, its sense of supreme satisfaction when people
believed, its presentation of ceremonies that have even a sensory
attraction, formed in the past a fine avenue of escape from the sordid
considerations of life for a great many {141} people and can still be
an invaluable resource for those who take it seriously. In the midst
of trials and hardships the folk of the older time learned to turn to
religion as a consolation that occupied their minds and promised them
divine help in their difficulties. Religion as organized in the later
Middle Ages, with its great celebrations on the festival days in the
beautiful Gothic churches, on the background of great art, served this
purpose of diversion of mind extremely well. If that had been its only
purpose it would have been quite unworthy of the great intellectual
and artistic accomplishments which religion aroused. But as a
secondary consideration this must not be forgotten, and the absence of
an appeal of this kind makes for that tendency to dissipation of mind
which is so unfortunate because [it is] so unworthy of human nature and
at the same time proves so ineffective as providing any real recreation
of mind.
In the old days when the Puritans went to a sermon two hours long,
they listened with rapt attention to the preacher, and in so doing
their minds were occupied with an entirely other subject from that
which ordinarily attracted their attention. Such a diversion, even
though it may seem to be pretty hard work, represents a real mental
rest because the part of the brain that is usually occupied gets its
rest, the blood being diverted to other parts of the brain. This may
seem a paradox to some people until they are reminded that men who
have lived very long lives have usually been men who turned from one
form of mental work to another for diversion and rest. Gladstone, for
instance, who was Prime Minister of Great Britain when past eighty
years of age, was an intensely hard intellectual worker all his life,
but found recreation from his political cares in the study and {142}
discussion of the problems of Greek literature. Leo XIII, who lived to
be ninety-three, concerned to the very end with the administration of
the Church--an immense task--found his recreation in the writing of
Latin poetry, though that might seem to some people too hard work of
itself to be classed as rest. For a great many of these hard-working,
long-lived people, as was true of both Leo XIII and Gladstone, prayer
was a recourse in time of trial that made anxiety less and took the
edge off solicitude and occupied the mind with the profound thought of
the Providence that overrules and somehow cares for us.
I have often said before medical societies, and in articles for
medical journals, because the expression represents a definite medical
conclusion in my mind, that the reason why nervous and mental diseases
were growing commoner in our time was that men and women had no real
mental recreation. They go to trivial shows of various kinds,
vaudeville, musical comedy and the movies, and they laugh a little and
feel a great deal, but think almost not at all. They try to forget
their ordinary occupations and worries, and indeed plays and novels
are now advertised as "the kind that make you forget", but they do not
succeed very well in this effort and their minds are not really
diverted. For diversion the mind should become occupied rather deeply
with some other subject, so that the blood which has been going to a
particular part of the brain in order to call up the memory of things
associated with the special interests of the individual may be
diverted to another part. This will give the portion of the brain
previously occupied a rest as almost nothing else will. Doing nothing
with the mind is impossible, though some people apparently come very
{143} near it. Doing very trivial things will not divert the current
of attention so as to allow of real rest. Attention is probably a
matter of increased blood circulation to a particular set of brain
cells. These will go on working in spite of the wish to stop, unless
the blood is actually diverted elsewhere in the cerebral tissues or
the individual sleeps, with its accompanying brain anemia.
For believers religion has this deep appeal and strong interest which
represents very definite diversion of mind. Of itself, then, it may
afford genuine recreation, though so little associated with recreation
in the modern sense of the term. It is the most cogent reliever of
worries. It affords the best neutralization of such intense
preoccupation with merely sordid concerns as may prove dangerous for
health.
Religion has always insisted that idle dissipation of mental and
physical energy was an extremely dangerous thing. The devil finds work
for idle hands is an expression that has come from very early
Christian times. While the Church has appreciated thoroughly the
necessity for occupation of mind and enjoyment and amusement and has
put the holydays into the year in large numbers and made true holidays
of them, it has also recognized clearly the dangers there might be in
recreations of various kinds. Fashion has often been strong enough to
override religious counsels in the matter, but at least they have
served to restrain to some extent, and they have always pointed out
the dangers so that young folks have not gone into them unseeing and
unthinking; thus a good many have been saved from grave risks and
absolute moral and physical injuries which might have proved serious
as the result of religious regulations and advice.
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Dancing has always been one of the modes of recreation with regard to
which religion has felt the need to exercise surveillance and
inculcate the necessity for proper supervision. There has been no
unthinking opposition to it and no mere bigoted intolerance. The dance
has always been recognized as an excellent exercise of the body and a
very definite mode of expressing beautiful thoughts in graceful
postures and movements; the dance has actually been used in Church
ceremonies, and its symbolism made to lend significance to the body's
share in worship or in the expression of beautiful thoughts. When
graceful dancing was to a great extent discarded and the essence of
the dance came to be the intimate contact of two persons of opposite
sex in the lively movements of modern dancing measures which were
almost sure to arouse passion, no wonder that religion counseled
prudence in order to prevent harmful developments which are often the
source of so much danger for health of body as well as for holiness,
that is wholeness of spirit. The restraint exercised in this way over
the control of occasions that might lead to serious consequences makes
religion an important factor for health.
It is quite true that religion does not often succeed in her
well-meant efforts in controlling such tendencies to dissipation and
sometimes seems utterly to fail, but that is largely because in recent
years there has been an unfortunate decadence of religious influence,
and people do not live up even to the principles of religion which
they themselves hold. Among those who still maintain the religious
life, the restraint exercised as regards many of these unfortunate
dissipations means a very great deal for health of body and mind.
Certainly social evils would be much worse only for the presence of a
great {145} conservative institution exercising restraint and calling
on people to practice self-control and self-denial in these matters,
no matter how alluring they might be nor how much they may have met
with the approval of what is called society.
Probably the most important element for health in the modern time is
the conservation of the distinction between recreation and
dissipation. Almost inevitably recreation becomes dissipation; that
is, the relaxation of mind and body so necessary for health becomes a
dissolution of physical and mental forces to the serious detriment of
the individual, unless there are strong, impelling motives to prevent
the degeneration. Such motives may be drawn from human respect or from
the desire to maintain the body in healthful vigor, but these lower
motives very often fail of their purpose and at best apply only to a
comparatively few among mankind. For the great majority of men,
motives with a deeper appeal than mere self-respect or the respect of
others or even the preservation of the body from impending disease are
necessary. In youth particularly bodily degeneration seems a distant
possibility, almost surely to be escaped without much difficulty,
especially if one has any luck, and even if serious disease be
incurred it will surely be cured rather easily by the means that
science now has at her command. The general appeal that is necessary
to give men a fixed point of support in maintaining recreation on a
high level and not letting it slip down into dissipation is to be
found in religion.
The reason why recreation and dissipation have so often come to be
confounded in our time, or at least that recreation has sunk to a much
lower level than it used to occupy, is the diminution of religious
influence over a {146} great many people. The old religious family
life made it much easier to maintain such discipline in the lives of
growing young folks as kept them from the tendencies to dissipation
almost sure to develop unless there are strong safeguards in the
household. Where the young folk themselves are firm believers in the
great truths of religion, their control is much easier and is
exercised much more by themselves than by any external measures. It is
the having a fount of incentive to what is good and deterrents for
what is evil within oneself that is the best possible auxiliary for
the neutralization of tendencies to evil that are as natural as they
can be and that represent one inexplicable phase of that mystery of
evil by which we are surrounded in the world.
The only satisfactory explanation of that is to be found in faith, and
it is from this that strength can be derived to prevent the lower
nature of man which shares so many animal proclivities from governing
the individual to the detriment of both sides of his being.
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