This can be used to maximise our enjoyment of life. Most of us have a livelihood to earn & a profession to be followed, which take up most of our time. The rest of the time & post retirement, is the time to savour the riches of Art.
As Dr. Edward Hodnett, writes in his excellent book "The Cultivated Mind", the occupations of the cultivated mind are the only steadfast defence against boredom & of frittering away the best portion of our lives in unsubstantial & unproductive pursuits.
He starts his book on the impact of ideas of Socrates & continues, to the delight of Indians, to the ideas of Gandhi & its practical applications. Next is the scientific vision from Aristotle to Pasteur. The biographers from Plutarch to Pepys & Boswell come next.
In fiction, Homer to Chekov rule the roost.
On the stage, dramatists starting from the Greek tragedians to O'Neill held audiences in thrall. Neither can the highbrow art of Poetry from Chaucer to Dickinson be overlooked. The visual arts Painting & Sculpture (the great Michelangelo was the master of both) pleased the eyes. Music is the most difficult art to write about, but the easiest to enjoy. From Bach to Stravinsky, the great composers spanned the whole gamut of human emotions.
Every cultivated person can make himself familiar with the above works. The cardinal sin is to do anything to "pass time" or worse, "kill time." Remembering the finiteness of Life, one has to be focussed & allocate one's time judicially to the pursuit of the above, never wasting a single minute on superficialities. Then, one may have the satisfaction of having time to enjoy only the best of the arts, leaving the others to fall by the wayside.
The key is, before any activity, to ask oneself the question "Is this the best way of spending my limited time?" If the answer is no, ruthlessly discard that activity & start with the best, because frankly, there is no time except for the best in our short lives.
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