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It’s our first full week of the semester. That means it’s time to start buckling down on homework and begin catching up on what we’ve already missed. I’m already beginning to hear apocryphal references to midterms and spring break. It’s outrageous how quickly the pace picks up! On top of school, we variably have student organizations, jobs and social lives to attend to. And, of course, the basic necessities of eating, sleeping, running errands and so on. With so much going on, free time can be at a premium. I know that, when I do find myself fortunate enough to have a few hours totally to myself, I often end up spending it frivolously. This isn’t so bad — but I’m sometimes left with a bad taste in my mouth. What could I have done otherwise? Why did I do what I just did? And did I even enjoy the last four hours of my time?

Unfortunately, the exhausting schedule of the average Emory student can make leisure less about personal pleasures and more about desperately catching our wind. Who doesn’t need to decompress? But we should take advantage of the resources available to us to engage in willful play.

When I speak here of play, I mean those projects we make for ourselves for our own betterment. This isn’t a moral situation: I mean only the self-education of learning about something totally unknown simply because it is there and it interests us. It may be something that resembles class work: going to the library, digging through the stacks, following strings of footnotes. It may take the form of making art, or purposefully watching a director’s oeuvre.

For many, what distinguishes our pre-college years is the luxury of free time in seemingly limitless amounts. Even the hardworking, super-involved high school student has time to commit to projects of independent learning and creation. The classic refrain is, “I haven’t been able to really read for pleasure since high school.” Indeed, I cannot count how many times I’ve heard friends and strangers lament the absence of just a little leisure reading. It’s such a well-worn irony, but college often gets in the way of our independent education.

Besides jobs and internships, most students keep their focus to the events of their life as a “college student.” The best-case scenario is that a student can take classes that stimulate them and appeal to their interests. In the absence of that, student organizations provide a way to pursue meaningful work. But play is defined by its unstructured, free-wheeling character.

The problem, I think, is that play can seem like an either/or proposition. Either I do my work, or I go see that new movie I really want to see. Either I see my buddies, or I start a journal. The examples can play out in infinitely many ways, but the fact remains that college students can be stuck in a cycle of ignoring personal endeavors for any number of obligations, and when free time does appear, engaging in strictly passive activities.

Consider orientation period. Orientation’s major themes, besides the more serious issues of social consciousness and ethics, are about weaving oneself into campus life: picking classes, joining organizations and making friends. It’s natural for any given freshman to be concerned about situating themselves amongst their peers and getting into an academic groove. But, looking back now on my college years, I realize that what was missing was an “and more…”

By that I mean that I was taught how to enter into the institutional elements of college, but the freedom to engage in play wasn’t something emphasized to me. Only last year did I begin to enthusiastically follow my whims. I changed my framework for free time, from one of ‘zoning out’ to one devoted to the purposeful use of my time.

There is an urgency to these considerations. One needn’t search hard to find a student with a lot going on. But college is a terminal point for leisure. Most of us will never have this much time to kill! Emory itself is rich with resources to pursue projects of one’s own design.

This isn’t about being less practical in our life per se, but rather is a call to expand the boundaries of what we find useful. Play helps us learn about ourselves — our interests, our talents. And play teaches us about the world; indeed, by putting aside our agendas and long-term plans, play gives us the space to interface with the whole of the world in creative, joyous new ways.

I’m not against the Netflix binge. But we should take time to pursue meaningful projects that have no reference to our assignments and social lives. The virtue of the independent project is that we cultivate play and set goals for ourselves. Whether it be reading a strange book or mindfully sauntering through Lullwater Park, we must all recognize that play can be threaded through our lives, in ways great and small. Our time matters, and we must act as such. In so doing, we suffuse our life with the fragrance of curiosity and self-led discovery.

Editorials Editor Rhett Henry is a College senior from Lawrenceville, Georgia.

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Rhett Henry is a College senior from Lawrenceville, Ga. majoring in Creative Writing and Philosophy. In addition to the Wheel, he's involved in WMRE, Feminists in Action at Emory, the Pulse Anthology of the Arts and Scholars Teaching Scholars.