She and I haven't been particularly close in the last few years, not since I moved back to New York. So when I found out this weekend that that's what her plans are, it sparked a rather interesting conversation with my husband that's been kickin' around in my head since yesterday afternoon.
A couple of months ago, my husband and I watched a documentary on the life of Charles Bukowski. Bukowski worked for the United States Postal Service for over 30 years; it's no wonder he spoke of work as torture. But this idea of work, the way we know it and the way it runs our society, being torturous, doesn't just apply to jobs as notoriously soul-crushing as that of working at the post office, and it got both my husband and I thinking.
Work is torture. I happen to be marginally good at many different things; some people are extraordinary at one or two things. But we all have our talents and abilities and passions. When I go to my job every day, how many of those "things that I'm good at" or "things that I love" do I use? None. On a daily basis, and for the better part of all the waking hours I get in life, I work at a job that uses none of my talents and leaves me without passion, excitement, desire, or fulfillment. The things I'm good at - the ones I love - they get the two hours at the end of the day that I can spare. The extra time I can manage around the other time spent doing something that leaves me wanting. All just to get by. Not to live large or be happy or even comfortable - to get by. The thing is, I'd be perfectly happy with getting by if I was doing so by living according to my passions and abilities. I'm tempted to think we all would.
Perhaps it's a bit of an anarchist way to look at things, but if we eliminated all the strictures of our society, and just allowed people to gravitate toward what they were, as some might say, "born to do", I kind of think maybe the world would be less hateful - less prone to implode on itself. There would still be doctors - some people just need to take care of other people. And scientists - intense curiosity and the ability to see forumlas is innate in others. And artists, obviously - we already work for free anyway. And so on and so on. Because we were all born with unique and wonderful gifts for a reason. We're just not using them. At least, not half as well or as often as we could, were we not stuck behind desks and assembly lines and conference room tables and up on ladders.
If you sit down and look at a system like that, of course you see potential pitfalls, and ask a whole hell of a lot of questions. But how is that really different from what we have now? And, frankly, I think a system like that would eliminate all productivity issues. Personally, I am willing to go the extra mile - or 700 miles - for the things that I love. For my current job? I won't even go the extra two steps some days. But if my job were to run and to make art, you'd better believe there would not be one moment of my day wasted. Ever.
And there are things that suck about doing what we love, too. But we do them anyway. After work, on our own, without compensation, we do them. We give up all but an hour of sleep a night writing. Or run through an injury. Or risk sunburn to tend our precious plants. We do those things that suck because we have a passion. Because we love what we do.
To say that I'm writing a treatise of government would be going a bit far - I have a lot more thinking to do on this before it's probably even worthy of this blog. But I just wonder. I wonder why we're all not moving to a house in the middle of nowhere to write. I wonder how we arrived at this place where "work is torture" and the best you can expect is a few non-torturous hours at the end of the day. Why so many gifts are being wasted. And why so many of us feel abused, unappreciated, beaten down, and exhausted at the end of a day. Why some days we don't have the time or desire to embrace our passions. I just wonder.
I have to find my own house in Oklahoma. I think I'm getting closer to knowing what it is. I sure as hell have to get out of the Post Office. Thank you, Mr. Bukowski. And rest in peace.
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