Why are Egyptians Afraid of Dragons?

I picked up a book a few days ago, read almost 60 pages in one sitting, and felt rejuvenated.

I’m sure I have already lost some readers who do not enjoy reading as much as I do, but don’t worry: this is not about reading … not entirely anyway.

I have written before about the harmful implications of emphasizing productivity and the romanticization of staying busy. This time I’m writing about what is now viewed as the antithesis of work: leisure.

Leisure is often encouraged; it is often assumed as part of our “everyday,” because of course, there are 24 hours in a day, one must have enough time for leisure, right?

Not right.

I won’t take you through my tiresome and boring daily routine involving two-hour commutes and long days on campus awaiting my classes, but what I want to highlight is that these stolen hours, these non-hours, leave me feeling in between places, in between people.

I never end up giving my full, undivided self to the thing I’m doing. I only give fragments, here and there, because my mind is always elsewhere – pulled to the place I need to be, or pushed by the place I had just left.

Time, which had seemed so abundant in the early years of our lives, is not so abundant anymore, and what’s forgotten in this transformation is this: the things we love.

What had brought me to college? What began this endless process of hustling, working, and busying myself?

It was my love for books; my joy of reading a book which resonates.

Ursula K. Le Guin, an American novelist, known for her science-fiction and fantasy novels, reflected in a talk entitled Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons? on the moral disapproval of fantasy, escapism, and ultimately pleasure in American society. She even goes as far as to say that Americans are not only anti-fantasy, but anti-fiction.

She relates this to American work ethic – profitmindedness, and Purtianism.

This is by no means limited to American society. In Egypt, the culture of fiction while lauded and upheld by some, is dismissed by many as trivial and maybe even pathetic. One hears the phrase “I don’t have the time for this nonsense,” countless times with regards to reading, especially when it comes to fantasy books and stories.

Apparently, the busier and older you are, the less time you have for “this nonsense.”

I cannot diagnose this or explain what drives, but I do know that it is not at all separate from ideas of work and leisure: work is always the goal; leisure can be summed up as the small, miniature motivational steps taken toward that goal.

Leisure has now become merely a filling of gaps, something you do when you have the time, a luxury which is now a lot more rare than one may think, and in that process I have forgotten the things that I loved.

And I had thought that that meant I had changed; that perhaps my interests and what fuels me have changed, but when I picked up that book – the first time for me to do so in three months – I realized that it was not me. My love had not changed. It is my life that did; my priorities; my motivations and my “work ethic”.

But LeGuin’s talk made me realize that these changes are not natural; in fact, seeking these pleasures is essential to our well-being. It is how we can find moments of what LeGuin identifies as “freedom of imagination” – free, in this case, meaning not having a price tag – which is so important that she defines it as a precursor to maturity.

“Discipline” is not about restricting imaginations, but letting them grow and flourish; not shying away from them or rejecting them, but embracing them as we do all of life’s pleasures.

We must try to find the time in our rapidly moving, rapidly changing world to embrace those things we love and to discipline them – to let them grow.