Montpellier, France,
Today is Sunday ad I had forgotten something about France: everything is closed on Sunday. Most of the businesses, many shops, cafes, and restaurants are not functioning on the sacred day of Sunday! I have witnessed around the world some sort of similar weekly break, but not to the extent of France, it is as if ‘life stops’ on this particular day. And I don’t like it, let me explain why:
Firstly it is a remnant of the Cristian tradition whereas Sunday is the day of god, which should be now obsolete in this not-anymore religious society.
Secondly, it is based on ‘labor’ work where you have you have to pause and recharge energy because work is hard (for the muscle and body), but nowadays most of our jobs are more cerebral. In the meantime, it emphasizes the differentiation (separation) of work and life. This originated from the industrialization of our world.
All these notions, in my opinion, should be notions of the past and are not turned towards our future: The life we need to embody in this century is the one that is inclusive with our environment, making one with Nature.
Work is a notion invented by humans, we need to get rid of that, and thus get rid of the ‘holiday’ notion, and ‘day off’.
If you observe Nature birds sing every day, they live to the rhythm of the elements, they do not have ‘day off’, and this is also what we should aspire to.
I think there are 2 ways to solve this: Either we should get rid of ‘work’ and thus get rid of ‘vacation’; Or we should integrate work as a life purpose, making it one, and thus having ‘vacation’ as obsolete.
In all cases having a weekly global disruption in our lives is completely unnatural in my opinion and it is an issue and threat to our well-being. It shows how disconnected from Nature we have become!