Entertainment

Any pleasant activity can be called entertainment if it serves as rest because it is not obligatory and interrupts habitual work. A little entertainment is good and necessary since man needs some rest to restore physical and mental strength.

Entertainment can serve:

• Regarding oneself: Rest, relieve the fatigue of the heart and mind in order to work better afterward. Improve personal formation. Develop some skill.
• Regarding others: Render a different service than usual. Forge new friendships or maintain existing ones.
• Regarding God: seek greater closeness with a more relaxed interaction, free from habitual worries.

They are not at all entertaining. They provide pleasures or impair the use of reason, but in this way man does not rest and, as these things feed selfishness, they worsen the heart.

Both are good and necessary, each in its proper time. In young children, entertainment and play occupy a larger space. As one grows in maturity, man grasps the greater importance of work. On the other hand, thinking only of having fun hinders the formation of personality.

There are three cases:

• Reasonable entertainment: it rests man and contributes to happiness.
• Entertainment exclusively: it does not make man happy, as he lacks the balance of work. The human heart needs to develop its talents and serve others.
• False entertainments (alcohol, sex, drugs...) neither rest nor entertain, but rather lower the dignity of the person.

There are requirements that characterize correct entertainment:

• Entertainment must be in accord with human dignity. The fact that something is entertaining does not make it good. Only entertainments appropriate to the dignity of a child of God should be accepted. Immoral entertainments must be rejected. That is obvious.
• Entertainment must not be obligatory or enslaving. We are before something quite elementary and included in the very concept of entertainment: what is obligatory and enslaving is not entertaining. The moment entertainment becomes obsessive, it loses its charm and no longer serves to rest. This obsession with having fun usually occurs in people — not only young ones — who lack ideals or have not discovered the greatness of work.
• Entertainment must occupy its place in the scale of values. Among the activities we carry out, some are more urgent, others more important, some more necessary, others more secondary. A balanced person manages to organize their time according to a scale of values, giving priority to tasks that truly deserve the top places in our dedication. A little order is necessary.
• Entertainment is not the main thing in life and must not be placed before everything else, but must occupy its secondary place in a balanced life.
• Entertainment must be moderate. Neither enslaving, nor absorbing, nor primary. Therefore, it must be moderated taking into account other occupations.

No, no. We men are not useless beings, nor do we wish to be. We want to achieve goals, ideals; we seek valuable results for this life or the next. These goals are achieved through effort. An effort that secondarily needs some moments of rest. But the main thing is not the rest but the ideal one wishes to achieve. Entertainment must not be the main purpose of life, but something useful for something else, even by definition.

The very concept of entertainment carries with it the fact that we are before something secondary:

• Entertainment includes in itself the notion of rest, and rest entails previous weariness.
• Entertainment includes a change of activity to devote oneself to something different from the habitual. But this requires that a habitual work exist. Entertainment is not necessary in itself, but in order to work better afterward.
• If there are only vacations, there are no vacations. If there are only holidays, there are no holidays. Vacations, holidays and entertainment require working days, and only afterward do they have meaning. They are something secondary. True entertainment requires previous work that gives direction and value to the rest.

In fact, if revelry is continuous, it ends up being tedious and a vicious circle ensues: to escape boredom, stronger thrills are sought, which soon tire again, etc. Because the solution is not more revelry, but more work. Work that gives meaning to rest. (Naturally, one will also have to find the meaning of work, but that is another subject.) Entertainment exclusively does not make man happy because he lacks the balance of work.

Entertainment is not the main thing at any moment in life, just as rest is not the main thing. More important are work, study, prayer, culture, service to others... Entertainment and rest are only necessary in order to make better use of time afterward.

You don't waste your life, but rather employ it in other things. What you lose is some moments of entertainment. On the other hand, if you dedicated yourself mainly to entertainment, you would lose hours of work, prayer, service... One must choose priorities.