by Ruth Surenthiraraj
Recent events surrounding the ABBA tribute concert held in Colombo brought to light certain long-standing questions particularly to do with the arts and the idea of leisure. While I will not pretend that I can capture the spectrum of responses that were offered on the fact that some NPP politicians had attended the concert, I am intrigued by what I thought was a dominant critique. The politicians were viewed as being hypocrites because they came in on a promise of focusing on the most immediate needs of the people and were then seen at a concert, something non-essential to the jobs they were elected to do.
This vein of critique is not really a new one to the arts, particularly to the performing and fine arts. Often, artists find themselves having to defend their creations because they are viewed as being non-essential. Indeed, anything that is remotely related to entertainment or leisure is often seen as being unnecessary and, therefore, easily dispensable. This is true regardless of whether you are studying or working. In fact, entertainment, leisure, or the space to create is often perceived as being directly and positively correlated to being able to afford either the time or the resources to enjoy it.
In this sense, we seem to have ample historical evidence. Certain forms of either entertainment or leisure have been specifically linked to having access to a certain lifestyle. You are more likely to be able to enjoy painting or sport or music if you are more well-to-do or you are born into a certain class. And if we have stories of artists or sportspeople from lower income families, it is more often than not because they have struggled against the grain and perhaps even caught a lucky break.
The problem with this view, however, is that it often leads to a faulty conclusion: we assume that leisure or alternative interests are only feasible when one has money to dispose of comfortably – or if you come from a certain class or can claim a particular social status. If you extended this argument to its rational conclusion, we are really suggesting that the poor or the working classes need not enjoy something that is not directly linked to the fulfilment of their basic needs. We often assume that if you are struggling to make it from day to day, then you can dispense with the idea that leisure or entertainment is necessary This assumption is a dangerous one because it ascribes more value to the life of the rich or the ‘well-born’ and feeds into the lie that leisure is not a vital part of enjoying life as a human being with dignity.
This acknowledgement becomes even more important when we think of students today. While they are often encouraged to get involved in extracurricular activities because it will flesh out their CVs and get them through the door into better employment opportunities, the discussion does not often go beyond this point. I am not saying that extracurricular or leisure activities cannot make you a better employee. But does this mean that our entire lives are defined by the employment we have or hope to have? Does it also mean that we should cut out all ‘non-essential’ activities that do not directly benefit our careers? And what happens when we give students the impression that if anything does not directly benefit their future employability, then they should be spending less time and effort on it?
I am myself guilty of this utilitarian approach. In one of my classes recently, I discovered that a fair number of students had not seemed to have done very much extracurricular work in school. I expressed my shock and horror and proceeded to tell them to try at least a few other activities in university. I then found myself having to justify why I would ask them to do such a thing and found myself blithely going on about how it will teach them skills of teamwork and handling difficult tasks or complex personalities. But when I thought back to that experience much later, I realized that I too had been guilty of reducing the inner or alternative lives of my students into something that was or was not capable of adding to their employability.
When we treat employability as the only measurement by which we decide if an activity is valuable or not, we are inadvertently telling our students that other measurements, like enjoyment or beauty or satisfaction, are invalid ways of deciding if something can be important to us. Students should not be made to feel guilty about spending their time on activities that are not directly seen as gainful. Instead, they should be encouraged to see that a fully embraced life requires multiple ways of measuring experiences that we encounter. In fact, an individual who can coherently hold together these varying ways of valuing the world will be more easily able to embrace realities that are complex.
But let’s get down to the brass tacks of why we should be encouraging students to do more activities that they enjoy instead of hyper-focusing everything they do on employability.
When did we last do something we truly loved without thinking twice about whether it would be helpful to our careers? But this joy of indulging in something that brings you satisfaction is exactly what we might be taking away from our students. By increasingly pressurizing them to keep performing within a hypercompetitive world, we seem to be sapping the last of their individuality and sense of self. If they are not routinely taught that they can enjoy themselves outside of their study or work, we will be facilitating the advent of a generation that eventually lacks the capacity to enjoy life itself. In fact, it is even more difficult to remind our students that they are allowed to not excel at something in life. The greatest pitfall of the employability perspective on extracurricular activities is that students now feel that if they do something other than studies, they must do it perfectly or perform at the highest level in order to justify their continuing of that activity. Practice does make perfect – but have we ever considered also telling them that it’s ok to not be the best in everything they undertake? In fact, I think we must consciously begin to encourage students to do something they love even if they are bad at it, rather than hail students who might be average at something they are indifferent to.
My point is that being indifferent (basically incapable of intense emotion) towards an activity is the worst way a learner could approach something – because this indifference strips you of any need to envision a better outcome or want something that is different. And I would argue that we need to actively encourage the ‘loves’ of our students – regardless of their success – if we are to combat this crippling and far more insidious indifference to life itself. A student who is capable of love towards an extracurricular or leisure activity can be enticed to love the curiosity of learning: a student who is indifferent may offer us no inroad to entice them at all.
I also strongly believe that encouraging students to have lives that encompass spheres other than their education or potential employment will help them navigate the reality of loss and failure with more composure and resilience. We often end up mistaking the fact that interest in something should automatically lead to easy success at it.. Often, though, we are deeply unaware or consciously blinding ourselves to the reality of failure or defeat. While failure can have very far-reaching consequences in education or employment, should we not have an alternative way in which our students might be able to prepare themselves for failure as a normal part of life itself? Continuing to do something I am bad at simply because I love to keep trying is a wonderful way in which I can think of how to navigate disappointment and failure as normal experiences.
To me, the discourses surrounding the ABBA event served as a reminder of how easily we seem to dismiss the vital nature of extracurricular or leisure activities. These ‘non-essentials’ often help us discover what truly brings us joy outside of our work or study. And it is good to be occasionally reminded that we need not feel guilty about creating the time or the space for enjoying other aspects of our lives.
