I would recommend Josef Pieper’s “Leisure: The Basis of Leisure” [0]. Leisure is not recreation. Indeed, the word “school” is derived from the Greek word for leisure, and the state of having to work was defined in terms of the lack of leisure, a negation of leisure. The leisure/work distinction is also reflected in the classical division of the liberal arts and the servile arts. (The liberal arts were what free men pursued, for the sake of wisdom, virtue, etc. The servile arts were for the sake of practical ends.) Work was understood as something you did for the sake of leisure (but again, not leisure as we understand it today which is at best recreation), not as work for work’s sake.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Leisure-Basis-Culture-Josef-Pieper/dp...