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In this chapter, I first consider Alasdair MacIntyre’s neo-Aristotelian notion of “practices.” For MacIntyre, practices refer to special forms of human activity that harbor what he calls internal goods, goods to which practitioners progressively gain access as they acquire more experience. Part of what it means to enact a leisurely state of mind is to become attentive to the internal goods of our practical engagements. At the same time, the activities in which we can cultivate and enact leisure should not only be thought of as “practices,” in the MacIntyrean sense. Attending only to such practices would narrow the range of human engagement in which leisure can be experienced. More provocative is the philosopher Albert Borgmann’s notion of a focal practice, which resonates with MacIntyre’s account, but includes a broader range of activities that count as worthwhile practices. While Borgmann’s account of focal practices covers what MacIntyre has in mind, it also includes simple activities such as cooking, walking, and reading. Borgmann shows that even, and especially in such engagements, we can experience and further cultivate leisure. Drawing from both MacIntyre’s and Borgmann’s insights, I sketch out three tangible ways to cultivate leisure.
Boredom is an enduring problem. In response, schools often do one or both of the following: first, they endorse what novelist Walker Percy describes as a 'boredom avoidance scheme,' adopting new initiative after new initiative in the hope that boredom can be outrun altogether, or second, they compel students to accept boring situations as an inevitable part of life. Both strategies avoid serious reflection on this universal and troubling state of mind. In this book, Gary argues that schools should educate students on how to engage with boredom productively. Rather than being conditioned to avoid or blame boredom on something or someone else, students need to be given tools for dealing with their boredom. These tools provide them with internal resources that equip them to find worthwhile activities and practices to transform boredom into a more productive state of mind. This book addresses the ways students might gain these skills.
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