The word ‘weisure’ was coined by Dalton Conley, New York University sociologist (and author of Elsewhere, USA: How We Got from Company Man, Family Dinners, and the Affluent Society to the Home Office, BlackBerry Moms, and Economic Anxiety) to indicate the 24/7 life where work and leisure interweave.
Weisure makes a value judgment and comes across as critical of the way in which many western men and women live ‘lesser’ lives because of its instant and in-touch nature. I see the experience as enriching and don’t bemoan the passing of the ‘old’ way of life, since there is no reason why the two cannot co-exist.
Doing the dishes is work, creating an algorithm is work, writing a poem is work and all three can also be leisure. There used to be a great cry for restoring the work-life balance, but as we integrate our lives and take both mind, body and soul to work, we naturally lead a balanced life.
Thus the separation of our inner values and our outer behavior no longer have to be in conflict. The more we can achieve this integrated way of being, the more likely we are to have companies that uphold the law, avoid excesses, respect all stakeholders, behave ethically.
Right now, companies that make great claims to be ‘green’, for example, have an almost activist style. Perhaps soon this nature will be the norm, not something that requires the appointment of a chief sustainability officer to uphold. If weisure is a universal way of life (at least in the west), the concept itself will be redundant.