Zatera Ul

Paul Tournier’s books are well worth reading, but hard to find. Tournier was a very shy and withdrawn orphan, who eventually developed a great interest in people and compassion for them, and specialized in the “psychology of the person”. I’m looking forward to meeting him in heaven.

Currently I am reading his book, Learn to Grow Old:

In order to make a success of old age, one must begin it earlier, and not try to postpone it as long as possible. In the middle of life we must stop to think, to organize our existence with an eye to a still distant future, instead of allowing ourselves to be entirely sucked into the professional and social whirl. It is then that it is important to give place little by little to less external activities, less technical and more cultural, which will survive the moment of retirement.

From a discussion about the relative value of work, versus leisure:

…Everything that contributes towards the lifelong harmonious development of the person derives its value from the performance of that function. Viewed in this light, work and leisure are two complementary factors. Work brings development in depth because of the specialization it requires. Leisure counterbalances it with development in breadth because of the diversity of the interests it cultivates.

Nevertheless, as we have seen, the ratio between these two factors must vary from one period of our lives to another. In youth, it seems to me that they are of equal importance. All that I did outside my studies prepared me for life quite as much as my studies themselves. Then, in the first half of my active life, the ‘biological task’, as Jung calls it, imposes a preponderance (but not the pre-eminence!) in the work one does for a living. In the second half, as we have seen, the balance must be gradually altered, leisure taking up more space in order to widen the personal cultural horizon in preparation for the later stage of life, that of retirement, in which leisure will take the first place, though this does not mean that the retired person is excused all duties.

Tournier was overly optimistic about how advances in technology would decrease the hours needed to earn a living, and thus increase leisure time. Perhaps this has happened to some extent in Europe; Tournier was Swiss.