Recreation or fun is the use of time in a manner designed for therapeutic refreshment of one's body or mind. While leisure is more likely a form of entertainment or rest, recreation is active for the participant but in a refreshing and diverting manner. As people in the world's wealthier regions lead increasingly sedentary life styles, the need for recreation has increased. The rise of so called active vacations exemplifies this.
Some individuals view recreation as largely non-productive, even trivial. Excessive recreation is not considered healthy, and may be labeled as escapism. However, research has shown that recreation contributes to life satisfaction, quality of life, health and wellness, and that the use of recreation as a diversion may have clinical applications to individuals with chronic pain and other health impairments. In some cultures and religions, recreation is encouraged on certain days and discouraged on others. For example, in Judaism, the Shabbat is a day for recreation and relaxation, which has in turn influenced many Christian sects to use the Sabbath for the same purpose. However, some sects interpret the Sabbath to be a day where worship is done in lieu of recreation.
Recreation is essential to the longevity of human beings, especially because it helps counteract stress. According to research cited in Time magazine, stress is a major factor in many of the leading causes of death in the United States.
In Deleuze's work, the term initially refers to the "virtual" dimension of the body. For Deleuze and Guattari, every "actual" body has (or expresses) a set of traits, habits, movements, affects, etc. But every "actual" body also has a "virtual" dimension, a vast reservoir of potential traits, connections, affects, movements, etc. This collection of potentials is what Deleuze calls the BwO. To "make oneself a body without organs," then, is to actively experiment with oneself to draw out and activate these virtual potentials. These potentials are mostly activated (or "actualized") through conjunctions with other bodies (or BwOs) that Deleuze calls "becomings."
Deleuze and Guattari
use the term BwO in an extended sense,
to refer to the virtual dimension of
reality in general (which they more
often calls "plane of consistency" or
"plane of immanence"). In this sense,
they speak of a BwO of "the earth." "The
Earth," they write, "is a body without
organs. This body without organs is
permeated by unformed, unstable matters,
by flows in all directions, by free
intensities or nomadic singularities, by
mad or transitory particles" (A Thousand
Plateaus, p. 40). In this sense, we are
invited to think of the earth
(mountains, plains, rivers, oceans,
etc.) as an (actual) body that is made
possible by a host of (virtual) forces
and powers -- forces and powers that,
for the most part, are not apparent but
that actively produce the world that is
apparent, the world that we see, touch,
etc. That is, we usually think of the
world as composed of relatively stable
entities ("bodies," beings). But these
bodies are really composed of sets of
flows moving at various speeds (rocks
and mountains as very slow-moving flows;
living things as flows of genetic
material; language as flows of
information, words, etc.). This fluid
substratum is what Deleuze calls the BwO
in a general sense.
In A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari eventually differentiate between three kinds of BwO: cancerous, empty, and full. Roughly, the empty BwO is the BwO of Anti-Oedipus. This BwO is also described as "catatonic" because it is completely de-organ-ized; all flows pass through it freely, with no stopping, and no directing. Even though any form of desire can be produced on it, the empty BwO is non-productive. The full BwO is the healthy BwO; it is productive, but not petrified in its organ-ization. The cancerous BwO is caught in a pattern of endless reproduction of the self-same pattern.
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