“Life without industry is guilt; industry without art is brutality.”
that’s my favorite quote, but not because i’m a particularly industrious fellow. i just relate to it–particularly the “guilt” part.
as a freelancer, i find it extremely difficult to keep my work ethic up. as a fine artist, i fall into ruts of depression when i’m failing to produce enough. in both cases, i have to be my own manager…and at times, it’s very difficult.
my question is–how much is man supposed to work?
we have this system where we work til 65 years of age in America, but that’s nothing to do with what is natural.
are we beasts of burden or leisure?
thiscartoon (story) really illustrates what i mean–the responsibilities we want to chuck, the guilt we feel in skirting them, and the joy of finding what we do want to do.
i think given infinite free time, most people would find something worth-while to do (and by “worth while” i mean worth *their *while, not productive/beneficial to mankind).
is this eschewing of burden a personality flaw–laziness–or is it just humans being human: wanting to do what they want?
You questions sort of implies Intelligent Design is at work, pardon the pun. There are certainly people who would do nothing but keep themselves in a drug-induced stupor if they could, and others who just naturally work their asses off. I can’t see there is any rational answer to your question other than: as much or as little as one wants as long as one can keep oneself alive and reasonably comfortable.
I think its just human nature - we all just want to do “our thing” whatever that thing is, and “being an adult” is the recognition that you have to do other things too. Balance is all about doing the “adult” things that have to be done, without losing yourself in the responsbility, and keeping sometime for fun.
As with many things in life, the Simpsons say it best:
“All work and no play, make Homer something something”
“Go crazy?”
“Don’t mind if I do! Bleaghahah!”
For me, I go through the cycle but don’t feel much guilt. Eventually my shit gets so messy I get tired of losing things and clean it up.
If I could go on an infinite vacation, also known as a “trip”, then I would, drug induced or not.
I do feel sad for people that nearly everyone is brought up to live the exact same life merely with different details, however in our quest for accumulating the most material goods, eventually formed capitalism, and now it is an obligation more than a luxury.
If I didn’t have to work for the rest of my life, with no repercussions, I’d do it. I have wracked my brain trying to think of something I would actually enjoy doing and getting paid for it. The only things I can think of that are worthwhile are Animal Control, Rescue, Animal Shelter, Vet Assistant, etc. And if I do any of those jobs, I will come home crying every day.
So I guess I have to do something boring and plod through life hoping I don’t get laid off until it’s time to retire. I can’t go back to school because I hated it the first time around, and can’t afford it anyway.
That is no way to live, and logically you may be better off committing suicide. Unfortunately most adults are not capable of seeing this, that what they are doing is not making them happy and there is another way to escape the system. Reminds me a bit of slavery, anyway. Just because you can hang onto a beacon of pleasure does not mean that you are living a happy, fulfilling life.
i forget the details, but i saw on some historical documentary a tale of a middle eastern (or Mediterranean) king who was ousted and exiled to a wonderful near-tropical island. it was his punishment, but the narrator said that food was abundant and easy to procure and the weather was temperate and lovely–basically he was set to while away his days however he pleased for the rest of his life.
something about that stuck with me. if there are places one can go where that is the typical lifestyle, what is man’s natural state…?
i think whoever up there said it varies was dead on–i think there are people who would collapse into a heap and never move again if they could. but i also know there’s people who, if you took all restraints of time and responsibility off them, would create and produce and innovate and invent like mad.
i mean.
look and henry darger…
he was prolific. for no reason at all.
edit: i guess it just depends on what you consider “work.”
No, because then I’d be dead and I’d be nothing. Any life is better than no life and no existence. It’s not like I’m going to heaven or hell, or anywhere for that matter, except into a crematorium.
And it’s just the whole working situation. In nearly all other aspects of life I am happy. It’s just my job I feel like I’m plodding through, and it’s not even a bad job. It’s the working in general part.
Sorry, didn’t mean to bring the thread down (or get a suggestion to kill myself! :p)
You’re supposed to do the amount of work that is necessary to supply the needs for yourself and those you are responsible for and to supply anything extra you want to have. Once you’ve reached that level, additional work is optional.
But you’re not supposed to quit early and make somebody else pick up your slack.
yes, but we live in a unique sociological time where we aren’t really cogs in a machine that makes society function. we can live without impinging on anyone while contributing nothing in return. i wouldn’t call it a fulfilling life, but it’s a life nonetheless.
i literally do not in any way matter–and what i do falls under the “entertainment” spectrum of livelihoods anyway(art). so even when i’m productive, if i contribute at all (and i would like to state here nothing i create will ***ever ***matter) i’m only culturally contributing–which, yeah…that can be significant if you do produce something that ends up mattering. but again, i won’t.
i do murals and stuff that will make like two people happy for like…an hour.
my point, tho, is that we all have this guilt when we don’t “do” enough.
at least i think a lot of people do. *is that guilt natural or learned?
*
my friend is in his 40s and struggling with the fact he works all day, hits the gym, comes home and basically wants to do nothing but read online, post in forums, look at nonsense on the net til bedtime.
my stance is: the net is both the biggest waste of time ever and the best thing in the history of mankind. he’s not out carving new tunnels through mountains, but he is learning.
i can spend a whole day “tumbling” as the idiots call it–just perusing various photoblogs, looking and learning and hoarding photos in my reference files–and i can 1. call that a total waste of a day and feel just rotten
or 2. call that a massive broadening of my visual horizons…because think of all the inspiring things you could come across, or photo references for future work, or just planting the seeds of ideas in general.
we are nothing but the sum of our experiences and influences reflected out through the filter of our mind. all creativity is an amalgam of all we see and experience, filtered and refined and spat back out. style is often failed technique, so the more we experience, the more creative we stand to be.
i believe that.
so the internet is basically an endless field trip.
on the other side, tho, *nothing *makes me feel more like a worthless POS than spending too long on the internet.
so, bringing it all back in: is that guilt–that worthless feeling–part of how humans are programmed to feel about productivity? or is it because of this work-ethic myth we’re fed from birth?
At my old, part time job I only worked about 26-34 hours a week. Now I work 45 (both figured include breaks).
I have noticed a huge difference despite only working an extra 10-20 hours a week. This sucks to have less free time (in my old job I had too much free time at times). But money is nice so meh. Thank god I don’t have kids.
Thirty hours a week of work (including breaks) would be ideal. I’d like to work four 8 hour days a week. If I can find a way to do that and get financially set up to do it, that’d be awesome.
If someone is willing to live in a paid off tent (or RV) w/o connection to the grid, and use paid off hand powered or solar powered gadgets, use public transit, live in a country with UHC, eat basic food, etc. you can get by on a fairly small amount of work. Probably 30 hours a month if you have a decent paying job.
I’m reading this really interesting book about the !Kung people of the Kalahari, or at least how their societies were structured before Western Civilization collided with them.
In one way, the stories of their absolute diligence towards surviving make me feel like the biggest wuss. Walking six, seven miles in the blazing sun, barefooted, with only five cups of water to stave off dehydration, and eighty pounds of baby, roots, nuts, and firewood in tow. No sunglasses, no music, no tasty food to look forward to, no soft cushion for your behind when you get home. Just a hard ground. And more work, busting those nuts, mashing those tubers, tending the fire, thinking about hyenas snatching you at night. Rinse and repeat…every day of your life until you get too old and the familial obligations kick in. And when food is sparse and there’s a rumbly in your tummy? You can talk and kvetch about it, but you can’t whine or moan. The culture doesn’t take no truck in whining or moaning.
I whine and moan when I accidently turn on the sticky keys and I can’t figure out how to unstick them.
So yeah, there is no “meant to” or “should” in this game called life. For most of us, if you want to eat, you have to work. 'Tis what all living organisms do. Humans are not special in this regard.
But in another way, the stories about the Bushmen highlight the fact that the struggle of life doesn’t mean life is hell. Even when working, you can crack jokes and have fun, bond with others, and have awesome experiences. When you look at it in this light, “work” and “life” don’t have to be separate things. Maybe when they are closer to unity, a person doesn’t even think of retirement and old age.
I think much sadness in our society is caused in part by the abstract nature of the work we do. Perhaps when what a person does is so divorced from concrete means of survival, they lose a sense of purpose and accomplishment. But what is the solution? We can’t all be hunterer-gatherers. And there are advantages to civilization that most of us are not willing to give up. So I say you’ve got to learn how to deal with the drudgery as best you can and make up for it at home. If your work makes you feel dead inside, go home to become alive again. Rinse and repeat. For every day of your life.
I disagree. If you’re contributing nothing, you’re impinging on others.
As for the rest of what you’ve said, you seem to be asking more about meaning rather than productivity. And how meaningful your life is is a separate issue from how productive your life is.
Some people do feel their work is meaningful. Other people feel their work is just drudgery but their lives are meaningful in other ways. And some people just live meaningless lives.
So I’ll repeat what I wrote before: do as much work as you need to. And I’ll add this: don’t expect your work to provide meaning in your life. Meaning is where you find it.
Man’s natural state is leisure. I mean, what kind of work did we exactly evolve with? Gathering food? Socializing? I wouldn’t really classify either as work…
Today’s guilt when we don’t accomplish enough is probably a social construct. Part of it, though, is probably from a lack of social interaction. Our brains were meant to have social stimulation for pretty much all of every day, so if you’re alone, you need something to fill that hole and distract you.
i think the guilt is due to the overly instilled Protestant Work Ethic…and i think that’s why Nemo thinks anyone not contributing is not ok.
but that’s a socioreligious construct. not something intrinsic to man.
i can’t, for the life of me, see how it’s “naturally problematic” for someone not to do “things that contribute to society” in a lot of various cultures, namely more leisure-based island cultures where simply existing is extraordinarily easy.
i think we are so engrained with the idea good people=work hard that we’ve come to think of it as just natural. but is it…?
Wish I had the reference, but an anthropologist measured the time spent by a typical hunter-gatherer hunting and gathering every day and found it to be 45 minutes. The rest of the time was spent drinking home-brew, shooting the shit, and napping back at the lodge. Male or female. If you knew better which plants to collect you’d do it faster and be back to the important things in life.
Of course, this requires an appropriate environment.
ETA: Oh, and poking the fire, a 24 hour operation. A part of drinking, shooting, and napping, but seems more useful.
yeah–i heard that too (what dropzone is talking about).
and something else to factor in: we used to be at the mercy of the light–so we did everything different. we worked a different day-light schedule and slept a segmented polyphasic sleep cycle that resulted in being asleep more than we are now. we had more downtime to while away due to darkness and lifestyle had to have been different.
i’m just saying…it’s hard to declare the american work ethic as “natural.”