Why work?
Being unemployed and looking for work it's a question I ask myself. Some people seem to think more about their careers than about their lives, they seem to mix the two up, but the two are complementary not substitute.
But what am I looking for? Is it so that I can feed and shelter myself? Is it to get me out of the house and give me some meaning? Is it so that I can earn superfluous money and buy superfluous things to distract myself? Is it for the intrinsic nature of the work: the stimulation, the value, the achievement? Is it so that I can buy shiny toys and show other people what losers they are? Is it for the dental plan? Is it all the above?
It's a tough one. You could spend a whole life working it out, but I hear the pay isn't good.
So I ask you, you out there, why work?
If work is something you define yourself as doing for money, then the reason you work is for money. If you define it as something you do for prestige, then you do it for prestige. But for many there is little prestige in something done without the reward of money, so for them though they self-define as in it for 'prestige' or 'love', really they are in it for the money. If there is something you do that doesn't involve money, because 'society' doesn't believe in it enough to think it should be rewarded, but which otherwise resembles 'work', or which, indeed, some lucky people do seem to get paid for doing, and you may also at some point, then this is your work, and you have defined it as something you do regardless of the money.
ReplyDeleteThe 'Bohemian lifestyle' or other self-defined path can actually be very hard work, but some regard it as worthwhile work, because though one may remain distant from the turmoil of daily life one isn't necessarily just to be seen as a lazy bastard, since it could be one is actually creating incomparable human values for the future, which was Goethe's attitude after the Napoleonic wars. Imagine if there were no starving artists, and everyone was a drone working for some fatcat bastard sucking their life dry, where would anyone ever get the idea that there was another way? Work per se is for money, and should be regarded as temporary, for a purpose that requires money. If you have no need of money as such right now, because your wants and needs are few, then you have no need for work save work you define as what you do because you love it or because it is your calling.
Work as a 9 to 5 thing carried on until 'retirement' (a telling word, that) is a trap for those with no imagination or needs/wants they have lumbered themselves with that must be fed, or they at least think they must be fed. But one should be careful of defining oneself as 'unemployed', since this buys into the whole illusion of state slavery. It may be that your self-defined 'work' done for love or because your are more strongly driven in that direction doesn't leave any time for conventionally defined work. It may or may not be rewarded in time, but that's not important, since it is not motivated by money. This does of course necessitate making sacrifices, including the discarding of what others regard as a prestigious role in society.
But for some freedom is more important than shite, so they don't give in easy. Depends what you want. If you want 'an easy life' (barring the shite of going to work at prescribed times) in which you 'fit in' with the expectations of others, and 'thrive' on the sugar-water of pseudo-prestige offered in the absence of real nectar (because you are being controlled by those who are manipulating you for their own ends), then queue up with the other robots to live 'a decent life' and pay your taxes to bomb other people's children while finding high barstools in expensive fuckoff bars both patronising and uncomfortable. I could say more, but you went away to learn this yourself didn't you? If you get a job, let it be a fly-by-night thing, to service some immediate need, not cotton wool to put the hedgehog of assumed values into hibernation for a very long time.
Be happy, healthy and make your mark on life! Keep up the good work Sebby!
ReplyDeleteDom in sunny Florida
A Joel comment under his own name? I'm honoured...
ReplyDeleteAnd good points. Yes, I'm struggling with some of that (as well as the non-work aspect, ie leisure) which I think is tied in in to how to be authentic to oneself...
We live in a society in which we don't make anything and which wants us to consume so perhaps they should just pay us to go shopping...
"... is tied in to how to be authentic to oneself..."
ReplyDeleteYeah, whether to wear slippers or red deck shoes around the house. It never ends. Whether this hat makes me look like a dustbinman. Do I prefer the gamekeeeper look this winter?
Red deck shoes, definitely.
ReplyDeleteYou're just going 'But who is oneself? Who is this I?' to which I respond 'I doesn't know...'
Who is this 'I' who responds? Who is this 'I' who doesn't know? Are there two of you? Who is the one looking at the two right now? Are there three of you?
ReplyDeleteThere's more than three.
ReplyDeleteI'm a mosaic.
The mistake I made was trying to be someone.
Perhaps the issue here, is one of perfectionism. I get where you’re coming from –those of us who like to think outside the box of our mundane, ‘Western’ existence open the flood gates to a barrage of existential, abstract questions about our lives that can’t be answered unless you’re planning on writing a doctoral thesis, and even then, you’re conceptualisation is worth as much as the next person. The fact is, there are no real answers. People create their own meaning; life is all about appraisal. There is no right or wrong – working a 9-5 office job and sitting in front of the tv is no better or worse than being a humanitarian aid worker, so long as you’re comfortable with it, and you finding meaning in things that intrinsically interest or motivate you. Life vs. work, doing the right thing vs. giving into some of nature’s less desirable instincts... it’s all swings and roundabouts. The less you search for the ‘right’ answer, whether it be empirical, existential, or otherwise, the easier it will be to find a balance that makes sense for you.
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ReplyDeleteThanks S, interesting comment.
ReplyDeleteI agree with 'creating' one's own meaning, be it in work or leisure, but I'm not sure about 'less' searching. I know one can get lost and disappear down a mental rabbit hole but it's important to ask some questions...
What is the saying: better Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied...?
Having said that, I often get headaches.
This is true - I'm all in favour of cogitation. The world would be in an even more sorry state than it currently is, if we all though less. But on an individual level, sometimes less means less of a burden, mentally.
ReplyDeleteToo much thinking can kill a man. I'm not sure that anyone big or important said that, but if not, you heard it here first.