FireGarden
Philosopher
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2002
- Messages
- 5,047
So, I've got a former boss who's like an older sister to me and she's going through some rough times. A rather protracted and lengthy amount of rough times in point of fact. And as people often do, she has turned to work, probably for the first time in her life. Although her family isn't really industrious at all, she went to career counciling up until college. So her concept of work, at least right now, is of the tyranical "Get Things Done or Get Fired" genre.
When we were employed together I was coming out of what I would now label my "hard-core layabout" phase, so her impression of me is that I still think all work is unmitigated baloney, which isn't exactly true. My latest exploration into Dilitantism has me rethinking concepts, but I'll get to that in a sec.
So, my friend, feeling generally crappy, asked me if I would work for her even though she knew I thought work was a load of garbage. Honestly, I was more motivated to helping her feel better than out of any reflection of honesty when I replied that I didn't think it was garbage and I would work for her. But there was just enough honesty in there when I added that I would work for her "in my own way". Of course, she asked what I meant by that.
Now, admittedly, I was sort of flying by the seat of my pants at this point, but I said something to the effect of "Well, what is work other than hopes and wishes? I hope and wish for things. Most people address those hopes and wishes by getting off their arse and doing something, I address mine by watching other people doing things" She had some trouble with the ambiguousness of that and wouldn't buy that I was directly working for her (as opposed to no-one) so I finally said I worked for the universe as a whole, for lack of a better concrete object.
But, I think I may have hit on an idea I like in that exchange. For me, sensible work would be hoping for something good to happen to others, that doesn't involve any specific toil or labour. Do I think that working will make things happen? No, not directly. My friend knows that I'm working for her (and honestly I am, in my own way) so perhaps that will help motivate her to do something to help herself.
I don't have any unreasonable expectations for results of this kind of work. It's sort of the metaphysical equivalent of cheerleading rather than trying to heal someone by becoming a doctor and treating them.
So, is there a flaw here that I'm not seeing or is this a reasonable approach to "work"?
I acknowledge the help of this thread in composing my post: UpChurch's "Been thinking about prayer"
When we were employed together I was coming out of what I would now label my "hard-core layabout" phase, so her impression of me is that I still think all work is unmitigated baloney, which isn't exactly true. My latest exploration into Dilitantism has me rethinking concepts, but I'll get to that in a sec.
So, my friend, feeling generally crappy, asked me if I would work for her even though she knew I thought work was a load of garbage. Honestly, I was more motivated to helping her feel better than out of any reflection of honesty when I replied that I didn't think it was garbage and I would work for her. But there was just enough honesty in there when I added that I would work for her "in my own way". Of course, she asked what I meant by that.
Now, admittedly, I was sort of flying by the seat of my pants at this point, but I said something to the effect of "Well, what is work other than hopes and wishes? I hope and wish for things. Most people address those hopes and wishes by getting off their arse and doing something, I address mine by watching other people doing things" She had some trouble with the ambiguousness of that and wouldn't buy that I was directly working for her (as opposed to no-one) so I finally said I worked for the universe as a whole, for lack of a better concrete object.
But, I think I may have hit on an idea I like in that exchange. For me, sensible work would be hoping for something good to happen to others, that doesn't involve any specific toil or labour. Do I think that working will make things happen? No, not directly. My friend knows that I'm working for her (and honestly I am, in my own way) so perhaps that will help motivate her to do something to help herself.
I don't have any unreasonable expectations for results of this kind of work. It's sort of the metaphysical equivalent of cheerleading rather than trying to heal someone by becoming a doctor and treating them.
So, is there a flaw here that I'm not seeing or is this a reasonable approach to "work"?
I acknowledge the help of this thread in composing my post: UpChurch's "Been thinking about prayer"
