In George
Elliot’s time leisure was viewed as an unnecessary waste of time, I mean why
spend time relaxing when you could be doing something productive like improving
the house or working. Look at society today there are so many things in this
world that focus on the idea of leisure. For example a cell phone is a simple
device that’s purpose is to communicate with other people but they have evolved
to let us do so much more. Read books, check e-mail, text message, and even
connect to the internet it’s now all there in the palm of your hand. How would
the past generation view this? More than likely they would disprove in the use of
resources and time but what exactly has caused such a different view in the
morals and values of these, what seems like completely different societies.
Let’s look at the past, in older days a high
value was put on work and productivity. That’s why in most cases both parents
worked and kids had jobs at young ages. Look at the stereotypical movies of
today that portray the past as a happy nothing’s wrong kind of mentality of
yesteryear, where a son comes to his dad chipper and happy because he made a
quarter on his newspaper route. Other than work a high priority was family. So
when everyone wasn’t working they were spending good quality time with one
another around the dinner table or out in public. Not to say the generation of
the past didn’t have any forms of leisure, for instance books were often read
but not for the same reasons that we do today. Books were read to teach people
things or instruct them on certain things. Now where do we start to see the
divergence in mentality?
The modern world as we know it has become
extremely convenient for us, I mean think about it today’s youth have a bevy of
tool at their disposal and we use them to their fullest extent almost every
waking hour of the day. For example privacy and discreetness has become a thing
of the past. The things that our society learns these days and at such a young
age as well would have been damn near taboo back in the day. That’s because
there is no information that we cannot grasp due to things such as the
internet, nationwide television, and even the daily news that keeps us informed
on everything that’s not just going on in our country but around the world. But
back to how leisure is perceived as a way to get away and retreat to places
that makes us fell calm or excited. Think about it when we are in our homes are
we really close to our families? Or are we tucked away in our rooms secluding
ourselves with the leisure that we hold so dear?
I like how quick to the point you are with your arguments as well as your own interpretations of leisure/concrete examples. You enhance and augment with the appropriate use of adverbs/vocab too. Nothing wrong with a simple yet efficiently communicative read, as long as it answers the prompt, which i think you did successfully. :)
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