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Perhaps I have a slightly different perspective to offer as, due to disability, I have never worked, in the sense of holding a paying job. However I have put in tremendous amounts of effort in various projects to better myself (going to university), which I enjoy (videogames), or which I simply feel compelled to do (writing novels*). I can't objectively analyze what this has all done for me, because I don't have a point of comparison, but I can and do derive pleasure from a wide variety of activities, some productive and some not. The sense of accomplishment at finishing a 120,000 novel is pretty great, and thinking about and planning a new one is extremely exciting, but I'm also pretty happy watching Star Trek in my PJs with my fiancee or playing a shitload of Paradox games. I don't think working at a paying job has any inherent moral value over and above that of non-paying work. It seems to me that what matters to most people is having a job which is challenging and where they have personal agency and recognition. I recall a video somewhere on YouTube where they were talking about how tech nerds will go to work, come home, and spend another 40 hours a week doing tech work to put out a new Linux kernal or something. There's no monetary incentive or reward, but that sort of personal project is clearly hugely important to a lot of people. By the very nature of such work, if you manage to find a job that fulfils those ends, you're probably going to do really well in it just by virtue of being engaged and enthusiastic. All that said, I'm leery of making blanket statements about people. I see things about alienation or how certain activities are only done for want of a better alternative, and it is really strange to me. Give me a billion dollars and I'll use it to play a lot of loving videogames; I don't play them solely to escape or because other things are poo poo, I play them because I love them and they're a huge part of my personal identity. (I also hate loving saying that because so many self-proclaimed gamers are horrendous, misogynistic, racist neckbeards but there it is.) I think some people won't really be happy without traditional work to do to the exclusion of much else, and I think some people will be very happy laying around watching Maury 15 hours a day. Most of us probably fall in between, but I don't know how well we can discuss our natures in this regard when the great majority of us have to go into work and stay there for decades, often in jobs so terrible they allow little energy for anything except basic relaxation when you get home. *I can't not write, and whether I was working a poo poo job in McD's or an amazing one for some laidback high-paying tech company, I'd still do it in my time off.
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Oct 23, 2014 04:16
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Torka posted:I legitimately don't understand how someone could ever get bored of self-directed activity unless they suffered from a serious lack of imagination. Same. It is really weird to me. There is SO MUCH STUFF to do. I could live to be ten thousand and not be half done, to say nothing of all the new stuff that would emerge.
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Oct 23, 2014 16:01
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