I'm a little surprised by how many people tell me they have no hobbies. It may seem a small thing, but - at the risk of sounding grandiose - I see it as a sign of a civilisation in decline.

The idea of leisure, after all, is a hard-won achievement; it presupposes that we have overcome the exigencies of brute survival. Yet here in the United States, people seem to have forgotten the importance of doing things solely because we enjoy them.