Human beings have a supreme asset: time, and I must insist on its importance because it is all we have. We use this good in multiple ways; However, in a strict sense, they can be summarized in only two: Mandatory Time that includes work, the hours we spend sleeping, eating, resting, in everything we are forced to do in order to continue living, and what we will call Free Time: what we dedicate to fun, creation, reflection, a countless number of activities that have nothing to do with survival, but with the recreation of ourselves.
We did not always have these two forms of time: there were times when we were only dedicated to survival: nights and days throughout our entire lives in which there was only Mandatory Time. This unfortunate circumstance, however, continues today to be all there is for many human beings. Plato refers to the emergence of this exceptional time in his dialogue The Republicand points out the main condition of its advent: Free Time appeared when society had surpluses, and that was when poets emerged, he tells us. I would add that these surpluses also made possible the birth of philosophy and art and, in general, of everything that creates culture and represents what is most characteristic of humanity: that extra that distinguishes us from the rest of living beings whose only occupation is aimed at preserving life: which means that we are not just biological beings.
Note that I do not call this decisive time “leisure”, but Free Time. The reason is very simple: “leisure” is a word that comes from the Latin otium which means, on the one hand, the time dedicated to reflection and the arts; but also to rest, and the latter, in my opinion, is more related to what is obligatory than to freedom. Resting, no matter how pleasant it may be for us, falls within what is essential to continue working, to renew the forces that allow us to continue with the biological imperative of maintaining life: leisure is also understood as inaction and, on the other hand, Free Time, as I intend to coin it, in no way implies inaction; It is above all activity, the activity with which we produce our own being, those activities that make us human, different from the rest of the living beings with whom, by the way, we share many characteristics, but from which we are distinguished not only by degree, but by quality.
I will try to be clearer: biological beings have a given meaning: to preserve life and not only that of each member, but life: the life of the species; That sense is presented as instinctive forces that direct them, and that is what they allocate all their time to. Human beings, on the other hand, despite being animals, do not have a defined meaning. Our great difference is that we are capable of giving ourselves some meaning, of inventing goals and directions that go further, far beyond mere survival. As biological beings we experience these instinctive forces, but we dominate them or, at least, we try to do so: hunger, which is the way in which the survival instinct manifests itself daily, we have redirected it and now there is culinary art, we have developed the palate and we not only eat out of necessity, but out of whim and pleasure. And the same thing happens with sexual desire, which is also an instinct, we have reoriented it and, in fact, we have reinvented it as love, because love is a human product and like all human products it has a history: from the rigid mating rituals of animals, we have discovered inconceivable forms of seduction: it bears little resemblance to the fight of lions to enthrone themselves in the pride and thus guarantee their offspring, with the strategies of the troubadour and the poet, with cosmetics and fashion, with the accumulation of wealth, with plastic surgeries, with the brilliance that invests those who rise to power or rise to fame.
And this has been possible thanks to the surpluses that Plato spoke of, because by having survival resolved we free ourselves from the single meaning to which biology guides us. By having Free Time we can ask ourselves: now what do I do with my time? What is the meaning that I will give to this time that is now for me? It’s not about leisure, it’s not about inaction or rest, but about having time for myself, to do me, to make myself. This is how philosophy, music, science, religion, politics, painting, mathematics, dance appear… all of them are active responses, senses that we have invented and that have made us what we are: human. Beings that possess something extra that other living beings do not have.
And that is why it is so offensive for someone to ask: what is philosophy for? What is poetry for? Because what they are asking is about the meaning of what in itself is what gives meaning. These questions are asked from a biological perspective, they are questions that have an animal assumption. Those who formulate them believe that the whole point is to survive, to solve needs. Fortunately, we are more than just needs and biological beings. Fortunately we have discovered Free Time and with it we can aspire to more than just being alive, to staying alive. We have the possibility that our life is not only to preserve it, but to do with it what we please: not to lie down to rest to return with vigor to Mandatory Time, but to dedicate ourselves diligently to developing ourselves in the direction we choose, to having a truly human life.
And don’t get me wrong: I’m not talking about professional philosophers and poets, those who contribute to the heritage of humanity, nor musicians like Beethoven or Bach, nor dancers like Isadora Duncan or Nuréyev; I am talking about anyone who reflects, composes some verses or whistles a song or spends a Sunday dancing salsa in a public park, because these activities, regardless of their usefulness in increasing the gross domestic product of the country, or the qualification they deserve in terms of their quality, are in themselves activities that make us human beings, and that is why it does not matter if they are lucrative or useless, recognized or irrelevant or if they lead us to success or nowhere; They are beneficial in themselves because they allow us to be more than mere animals, with them we build ourselves as people.