November 6, 2009
meaningful work
Showed the doco to KB reps last night and got the content signed off on. There is a bunch more to do on that project, but hopefully my role is more administrative from here on out. Getting the doco to this point, and finishing the draft of the nonfic and getting it to a point where it can be submitted to publishers (there is more to go on that project too, but again hopefully more administrative stuff and minor touch ups) has been the focus of, well, the past couple of years, since my brother died.
And I have definitely resisted taking on new projects and commitments since then. I didn’t start another band when This Charming Mystery folded last year. I have avoided becoming integral to any of the worthy community projects underway.
All in all, this opens up many questions (why am I in Wellington? What am I doing? Why?) which all sort of subsume into the question “what now?” Travel has been the default goal for a while now. Which leads to the need for some money to travel. Which likely leads to the question of paid work. Which is something that circumstance has allowed me to avoid for a long time.
For a long time now I have been engaged in projects that have eaten my life but I have felt were worthy. That sense of worth and usefulness is pretty fundamental. It is extremely difficult to conceive of doing anything without that – or some corresponding – sense of valuation to my actions. Acting in accordance with my values – following my bliss, in Joseph Campbell’s language – makes an incalculable contribution to my experience of life. (Maybe “acting consciously” is a good synonym.) Abandoning that seems untenable. Life just seems too short to be acting in a way which doesn’t accord with my fundamental beliefs about what is important; life is definitely too damn short to do stuff that is not worth doing. (My feeling about this is probably coloured by watching my brother going from healthy to degenerating and dying in a span of years.)
A lot of people seem to get that the system is fucked, but be less certain about what to be doing about it; embedded in the trade-off between work and the freedom money buys to do what they want, but unsure how to shift their work to something they find meaningful. And the irony is there is a tonne of really worthwhile stuff to do, that I would happily do, but it seems harder to get paid to do it than doing meaningless work in a capacity which perpetuates a broken unsustainable system I disagree with.
I am not the only one thinking along these lines. For instance, this random blog from some guy which captures a lot of the insight about what we do in working vs doing what we value:
The difference is more than merely the one between business class and flying coach. There’s a whole set of values, attitudes and behaviors which go along with working that simply do not flow quite as naturally from the state of “not” working. (I keep putting these things in quotes because I’ve worked my ass off while unemployed, literally two or three times as hard as I ever did as a salaryman.)
And here’s my calculus: not only am I personally almost infinitely better off (emotionally, physically, psychically) not working, but I feel, and believe the results will bear me out, as if I have contributed far more to the world I live in while not formally employed.
Ironic, isn’t it? Build a few compromised, painfully limited Web sites, and enjoy all the fruits our economy can bestow on you; structure your time in such a way that you can actually contribute useful things and, hey, baby, you’re on your own – no salary, no benefits, no protection. I suspect that I am far, far from the only one for whom the same calculus would apply.
My challenge, from here on in, is going to be to invent situations that allow me to do what I do best and still put food on the table. These situations, I am coming to believe, will hardly ever resemble “jobs” as we understand them, and I’ll know a certain measure of insecurity as a result, because our economy and even our society aren’t particularly well set up to account for edge cases like mine. And like anyone in similar circumstances, I’ll need all the help I can get.
As you might expect, I resonate pretty strongly with these comments. I also like the term “situations” above, which seems to capture a sense of the fluidity and out of the box quality underlying this sort of thinking.
Where are the jobs about building the world to come? How can anyone get paid to help a transformation of life occur when the money is generally all about preserving the status quo? How can I create/facilitate positive change in the world and/or individuals and get paid? How does one interact with a failing system on its own terms while bringing about a new way of being? These are questions I guess I am now asking more in earnest, among others (more about figuring out what I really want/need.) And figuring out the answers will likely be a process…
Filed by billy at 1:35 pm under the moose,the world
10 Comments
There are a huge number of political or NGO organisations that attempt to change the status quo, if you look for them. Some of them even have money to spend on staff…
good question…
I’ve been pursuing meaningful work for a while, although most people who disagree with my categorisation.
As a conslutant I’m chasing the people who will pay me the most to work on software that is either used by a lot of people or handles a large value of money. At the moment I’m achieving the latter.
Being highly amortised is pretty fun, focussing, and I know that I can write software that is more reliable in comparison to other code authors. Making sure that software that handles money is reliable is of ethical value, according to my own categorisations.
d3vo: That’s cool. No one has the right to define what is meaningful for anyone else. I think the point is whatever the decisions we make, they must be interrogated to see if they are congruent with ourselves/our meaning.
I nver doubted that these questions stopped, but man is it refreshing to read your thoughts on this… again. Of course, I am struggling with the same issues but in a rather different context… God, it will be interesting in a couple of years to sit face to face with you again.
I nver doubted that these questions stopped, but man is it refreshing to read your thoughts on this… again. Of course, I am struggling with the same issues but in a rather different context… God, it will be interesting in a couple of years to sit face to face with you again.
I nver doubted that these questions stopped, but man is it refreshing to read your thoughts on this… again. Of course, I am struggling with the same issues but in a rather different context… God, it will be interesting in a couple of years to sit face to face with you again.
I don’t think my job is not especially meaningful in itself, but it supports a hell of a lot of people doing jobs that I think are very meaningful. If I walked way from my job tomorrow someone else would do it, but there’s 99% chance they would not do it as well. I could make more money while working less doing the exact same job elsewhere, but it would mean working somewhere with a focus on profit rather than result.
As flawed as the system is, I figure I’m stuck with it for the moment so I’m happy to work within it for now. My skill set is not limited, so if/when the system does change I’m confident I can adapt.
Disclaimer – I work a job for a bigarse media company. It is fundamentally pointless and personally degrading and of great value to the types of multinationals and politicians I despise with all of my heart and soul. This job, like the job I held as a builder before it, sucks my energy and creativity, deforms my personality, and from time to time leads to great fuming and sobbing upheavals of frustration and despair at this life I have created for myself. The desperation can feel murderous when I ponder the opportunities in my life I have squandered through fear, complacency and arrogance.
So just your typical taxpayer then.
However, I’m not quite a total fucking idiot. And as such I do find this high-horse soul-searching about finding employment suitably attuned to your stainless ideals somewhat fucking patronising. As I do whenever I hear an artist living off the money the state takes from working people’s wages start ruminating along the lines of how 9 to 5 work is beneath them because they don’t want to be part of the system man…
If you want to travel then get a job and fucking travel. In the process of working, (which will suck, no two ways about it – that’s what wage-work does: it sucks), a fellow of your intelligence will glean a deeper understanding of what it actually does to people, which may help you in communicating to them in a more empathetic way the alternatives. And then you’ll have some money in return for the bit of your soul that has been forever eaten by the machine, and with that you’ll be able to go and meet the world while you still can. And that’s got to be as good a thing as any thing that ever was.
Right, love to chat more but I have to go to bed now – work tomorrow!
Apologies for the petulance of the my comment above – had worked late and been trapped listening to climate change deniers all night long. Mood ungood and caught in precisely the type of mental state you’re wise to be seeking to avoid through finding agreeable employment. Good luck.