meaningful work or death

September 24, 2006

meaningful work or death

I work pretty much all the time these days. It’s not uncommon for me to start work at 9am and carry on well past midnight, often for days on end.
I don’t have a problem with it; I like what I do. If there were more hours in a day, I’d use those, too.
For countless generations, this was the norm. You got up and you worked your hindquarters off till it was time for bed. If you were lucky you occasionally managed to get laid, fed, drunk etc in the process. All good.
But then in the last hundred years or so we lost the plot. Suddenly “Leisure” started taking over. Suddenly useless things like lying on a beach, reading trashy novels, watching dumb movies, going shopping, attending art openings, and visiting Disneyland started to become not only common, but an end in itself.
Now taking time of from the daily grind in order to recharge our batteries I don’t have a problem with. Heck, that’s what The Sabbath was invented for [“All a child needs to be happy are two things: a hard wooden chair and a Bible” etc].
Where the problem arises is when this “Leisure Time” starts taking over. Becoming no longer a means [recharging], but an end it itself, what we call a [shudder] “Lifestyle”. When your work stops being your “Real Life”, and “Leisure” starts becoming your real life i.e. When your job just becomes this unpleasant “thing”, something with no other meaningful function other than to finance your new “Real Life” i.e your “Lifestyle”… you know, the expensive part with all the shopping, beaches, cocktail parties, vacuous conversations etc.
Sure, I know this Work/Life schism started a long time ago, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the time clock, Marxist-worker alienation from the means of production etc etc [Some people prefer the term “balance” over “schism”; they are deluded], so it’s very ingrained into our culture.
I renounce it, regardless.
Meaningful Work or Death. Any other form of existence doesn’t interest me. Thanks Be To God.