avevale_intelligencer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
avevale_intelligencer) wrote2005-08-23 01:36 pm
avevale_intelligencer) wrote2005-08-23 01:36 pm
Work and play
Thoughts arising from comments to one of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
telynor’s posts, about the attitude of people whose lives revolve around their day jobs to those who pursue their creative dreams:
Everyone’s heard (or used) the phrase, of anyone who for whatever reason doesn’t have a regular job: “They think the world owes them a living.” This phrase (yes, I know it’s a sentence, and quite a severe one as well, with no time off for good behaviour) bothers the hell out of me. Partly this is because I am by nature idle and hate being made to feel guilty for not loving to work, partly because I have a knee-jerk adverse reaction to the hardline-Heinlein life-is-real-life-is-Algernon work-or-starve gung-ho worldview. Neither of these reactions is significant, both being flaws in my character that I probably won’t succeed in shifting at this late stage.
Partly, though, it bothers me because I dislike the idea of seeing life as a matter of debts and obligations. Clearly, to people who say this, it is a fact that, if the world doesn’t owe me a living, then obviously I must owe it one. I must pay back my life, in daily increments, to strangers who already get the benefit of the lives of many others. There is no element of choice. It’s what you do. Taking time out to be creative, especially unpaid, or even worse simply to play, is wasting something that doesn’t actually belong to me, that was mortgaged when I was born. And there’s no upper limit to the repayments. Even when I get too old to work for a living (however that will be defined by the time it happens) there will be this sense of indebtedness. I should be grateful for whatever microscopic amount of pension I get, because it’s really charity and I should be doing something in return.
This is a rich planet, as John Brunner said many years ago, and I live in one of the richest societies on it, and we are all bowed down by this culture of debt. But life is a gift. It’s not owed; it’s given. Talents are gifts. Strength and wit and even beauty are gifts, with no price tag. And I wonder how it would be if ours were a culture of giving, rather than owing: if we were brought up to believe that we are all immensely rich in ourselves, and that the way to make the best of our riches is to give them to the world, as the world gives to us. Give our time and our energy to help others, as we are given the means to live. Give of our talent to make the world even more beautiful, as others make it more beautiful for us. Give our lives, not because we owe them, but because we have them.
Stupidly idealistic, yes, probably. But do we begrudge our efforts and our time because we feel them being demanded of us, as of right, and that less than the equitable value is being tendered in return? Have we learned to look at the world as a marketplace, where everything has to be haggled over, bought cheap and sold dear, as if there were some scarcity? Can this view be changed, and would the world grind to a shuddering halt if it were?
telynor’s posts, about the attitude of people whose lives revolve around their day jobs to those who pursue their creative dreams:Everyone’s heard (or used) the phrase, of anyone who for whatever reason doesn’t have a regular job: “They think the world owes them a living.” This phrase (yes, I know it’s a sentence, and quite a severe one as well, with no time off for good behaviour) bothers the hell out of me. Partly this is because I am by nature idle and hate being made to feel guilty for not loving to work, partly because I have a knee-jerk adverse reaction to the hardline-Heinlein life-is-real-life-is-Algernon work-or-starve gung-ho worldview. Neither of these reactions is significant, both being flaws in my character that I probably won’t succeed in shifting at this late stage.
Partly, though, it bothers me because I dislike the idea of seeing life as a matter of debts and obligations. Clearly, to people who say this, it is a fact that, if the world doesn’t owe me a living, then obviously I must owe it one. I must pay back my life, in daily increments, to strangers who already get the benefit of the lives of many others. There is no element of choice. It’s what you do. Taking time out to be creative, especially unpaid, or even worse simply to play, is wasting something that doesn’t actually belong to me, that was mortgaged when I was born. And there’s no upper limit to the repayments. Even when I get too old to work for a living (however that will be defined by the time it happens) there will be this sense of indebtedness. I should be grateful for whatever microscopic amount of pension I get, because it’s really charity and I should be doing something in return.
This is a rich planet, as John Brunner said many years ago, and I live in one of the richest societies on it, and we are all bowed down by this culture of debt. But life is a gift. It’s not owed; it’s given. Talents are gifts. Strength and wit and even beauty are gifts, with no price tag. And I wonder how it would be if ours were a culture of giving, rather than owing: if we were brought up to believe that we are all immensely rich in ourselves, and that the way to make the best of our riches is to give them to the world, as the world gives to us. Give our time and our energy to help others, as we are given the means to live. Give of our talent to make the world even more beautiful, as others make it more beautiful for us. Give our lives, not because we owe them, but because we have them.
Stupidly idealistic, yes, probably. But do we begrudge our efforts and our time because we feel them being demanded of us, as of right, and that less than the equitable value is being tendered in return? Have we learned to look at the world as a marketplace, where everything has to be haggled over, bought cheap and sold dear, as if there were some scarcity? Can this view be changed, and would the world grind to a shuddering halt if it were?
no subject
When I was born, my parents owed me a living. It was, after all, *their* decision to bring another human life into existence; one that would require feeding, nurturing, continual supplies of oxygen, etc.
Fortunately for us all, the oxygen supply issue is (at present) a non-issue. Can't seem to go anywhere without catching a lungful of the stuff. That left them free to concentrate on the food and the nurturing and so on.
They provided food in ample sufficiency (albeit occasionally a bit overcooked) until my 18th year, and in the meantime they provided (by means of Dad's income tax payments and Mum's crossword addiction and various books and a TV set) something really valuable: An education. (Remember the parable about teaching a guy to fish?)
I have to honest and say that on the nurturing front, they seem to have got a bit behind on payments after the first few years. There are complex reasons for that, which I won't go into here.
I figure they had actually discharged their material debt to me by the time I was 16, and by the time I went to Uni, they were well in credit with me... But I was an ungrateful sod, oblivious to these matters of economics, and demanded more. And they *kept on making the payments*.
And the thing about Uni is, you don't just get more education, and some cut-price accomodation (paid for by Mum & Dad's direct contributions and taxes), you also get a whole new bunch of friends, who are around you ever day. That slight deficit on the nurture side? Paid by proxy.
No one owes me a living any more. The fact that I was provided with one, but seem to have used up *two*, is what places me in debt - and is nobody's fault but my own.
But there are folks in the world who *are* still owed a living. People who have never received what their parents - sometimes only one of their parents... or in very rare cases, someone other than parents - became obligated to provide when they did whatever they did that led to the creation of a new life. The difficulty in many of those cases is deciding *who* owes them a living, and/or figuring out what to do about the fact that said person or entity has no means to pay...
no subject
I think it's doable.
no subject
And we are encouraged to learn those heavenly attitudes and principles, by exercising them right here on earth. I think the point that most people miss is that we need to practice them here in the world as it is today *understanding that they very often won't work as intended here*, because the world is poisoned. But by trying out the "new deal", and seeing how it works on the odd occasion where it really *does* work, we gain confidence (akak faith) that such a world really is possible, and really is heavenly, if (and only if) *everyone* there subscribes to those principles. And we eventually (hopefully) gain enough confidence to apply the same principles in our relationship with the biggest, scariest debt-collector (if we choose to view him as such) of them all, who is also the biggest, most wonderfully loving gift-giver of them all (if we allow him to be); the one guy who we *certainly* have to be able to get along with if we want to be part of the Kingdom of Heaven, because, well, he's the king, y'see.
And that's why not everyone goes to Heaven: Because some people simply refuse to allow Heaven's *essential* operating principles into their lives.
Because, y'see, the other way of looking at things? The frantically tracking who owes who for what and how much and "is it OK to stop and take a break yet *pleeeeeeeease*...."? That's called Hell.
no subject
Beautiful words. :-)
no subject