Recreational activities are those that individuals engage in for fun outside of their everyday work. These activities are chosen and not necessary.
All of these activities can be done for fun, including playing sports, listening to music, taking a tour, picnicking, or going on a quiz. Recreation is all about enjoying your spare time. Recreational activities are meant to refresh the body and mind.
People can relax when there are enough opportunities to do so. Recreational activities help improve the quality of life for citizens by improving their physique and mind. Today’s youth waste their talent and energy on unproductive and unnecessary actions. Many children also engage in anti-social and unsocial activities due to a lack of outlets for their abundant energy. Recreational activities are important not only to the individual but also to the society.
What is the role of recreational activities today?
Recreational activities are often used to amass wealth. Recreation has become an utterly distorted concept. Recreational activities are now careers for many. The greedy use recreational activities to accumulate wealth instead of using them to seek pleasure. This is a worrying trend. This trend has the net effect of deteriorating the culture of society. This trend has affected three significant fields.
Sports and Games
This trend can be seen in many areas, including sports and games. Sports and games have become a full-time profession for many sportspeople. The money they can make from sports and fun is what drives them, not the joy of excellency. This trend has the usual result of killing the spirit behind sports movements. The nature of sportsmanship is conspicuously missing. This field is characterized by fierce competition, leading to rivalry and hatred among the players. In this field, the original philosophy of enjoyment has been thrown out. Sports and games are no longer aimed at improving people’s physical fitness.
Sportspeople use their fitness exclusively for sports and games, which is not beneficial to others. It is a subversion of sports goals and a misuse of money. Promoting team spirit, friendship, and other such characteristics is not a priority. The rivalry has become so intense that people turn to drugs to succeed. This trend is likely to be behind the stabbing of tennis player Monica Seles.
It is saddening to see that the privileges and perks given to athletes work against the basic philosophy of sports and games. We see athletes trying to beat their previous records at every Olympics. This isn’t an improvement at all. What does it mean to improve on previous records? Why is it necessary to strive for excellence? What is the cost of this excellence? Behind-the-scenes operations of such feats will reveal the futility of such human endeavors. This phenomenon is also a result of the narrow concept of nations, regions, and similar concepts.
This trend is not limited to chess. The mental faculties of a chess player are praised and thus highly paid. This talent is wasted if it is only displayed on the chessboard and does not benefit others.
It is easy to understand that if we want to see sports and games benefit society, the field of sports must stay within the concept and idea of physical fitness and recreation.
Musicians
Music is another misused recreational activity, just like sports and games. The sublimity of music is meant to be enjoyed. We find it being used for money. This is especially true in the case of cinema music. The commercialization of music has robbed it of its recreational and pleasurable value. Fusion music is the result of fierce competition within the music industry. This trend has done more to increase noise pollution than improve the quality of music. Music that is produced for money’s sake will not be beneficial to people but rather spoil their senses. Stereophonic and computerized music systems contribute to this trend as they encourage the commercialization of music.
Movies
Celluloid cinema is another activity that not only wastes money but also spoils society. Now, it is considered a cheap form of recreation. The cinema is affordable in terms of the money you pay to go and it’s content. Commercial cinema as a full-time business is a sad reflection of the culture that prevails in civilized societies. It is a waste of human resources for men and women to become full-time actors or actresses and do nothing else but act in films. It is criminal to waste the vast sums of money that go into producing commercial films. The materialistic society does not understand this simple truth. The most depressing fact is that the current rulers patronize commercial cinema at the expense of programs meant for the commoner. The people believe there is no way out of this cheap entertainment. Even worse, because of the popularity they have gained in the cinema, these pseudo-heroes can rise to power in this misguided society. We can see that what began as a form of entertainment has evolved into a lucrative industry and has, in turn, contributed to the degradation of culture. The glitter of the cinema is widely accepted as a distraction for youth.
Avenues for recreation are being abused to benefit a few and, worse still, are destroying society. Celluloid demigods, goddesses, and other celebrities are known to use their political influence to undermine the interests of society. This is a grave threat to the general public.
What can you do to rectify this situation?
There should be no full-time players in the sports and games field. All players must do something other than sport which benefits society. It is not a good idea to do this just for the sake of it. Employing sportspeople in offices and banks to promote their sporting talent is unfair. This is a waste of money.
