On Sunday I went to listen to Alain de Bottom at the Opera House. I was definitely feeling very cultured for a Autumnal afternoon. The talk revolved around his lastest book: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work...and resonated many concepts I am battling at the moment with an essay critquing Marx and Durkheim. I expected there to be about one to two hundred people there; not 1044, with the age range easily spanning 60 years. It was quite a fasinating feeling to be there on a Sunday amongst so many people.
It was an interesting talk regarding the apparent dichotomies of the necessityof work and pleasure. Does it necessarily have to be a balancing act? Weber had a rather depressing out looking believing that happiness and really fullfillment only comes around for one lucky person every 1000... I think the odds are against us...
I think one of the most emotive topics was about how work comes to define us and that many of us have let oursleves be defined by a sixteen year old that no longer really represents our hopes, dreams, desires, values... our identity. I think that this is gradually changing for younger generations as we never seem to stick at anuthing longer enough. We are not bound by the same climate that our parents etc were when they chose their professions. But the same point still applies to younger generations. We relinquish control and perhaps blame others for our choices. Maybe that is a little harsh. Alain alluded the challenge of changing careers with the experience of 'coming out' for a person who is gay. If our careers are so determinative of who we are, what we stand for, what we want, then people are shocked to think that someone would wish to relinquish this identity if they have stood within the boundaries of that career identity for so long. So people resist a career 'coming out' as it interupts the whole schema of who people think they are. It takes courage to say that this is not me, but this is. It can also be hard to tell you colleagues that you hate your job or that the job fails to represent you, because some may see this a rejection of the values they thought you shared. I thought it an interesting analogy.
He joked about why don't we have a HR department in home; to come in and sort out teh relationship dramas. It is not surprising that some people do 'hide' in their work because it is something that they (sometimes) have more control over than other aspects such family, relationships, self-endeavour etc. Work can give an avenue into which we have mastery and often reward for such efforts. It's funny how that as culture has developed there has been a transistion from work being perceived as a negative thing, 'what the poor people do', to a complete shift with the rise of the bourgesis and a desire to work, to contribute, to create. Work became the ideal.
The problem with many work environments is that the individual is too far removed from the meaning of the purpose or product or the result which is beneficial to another. When the job is devoid of meaning and you feel that you are not having a positive affect on anybody's life then it is hard to see why people equate work with negative emotions. Have a good weekend. This is the minor part of the week. I would rather have a shit weekend if the other 5 days made me smile!
Some people, many people, beleive that they were destined for one thing, and if they knew what it was, if only someone would tell them then they would do it. I don't think it is that simple, that easy or for that matter that boring. You may as well shoot yourself and write 'BORING' on your tombstone. It is in pursuit of finding that true achievemet comes.
Is it ironic that a career councellor is disatisfied with their job? Of all people that should know! Unfortunately there is no god shining a light saying you will... and you will be...so we have created batteries and batteries of tests... which it is still questionable the extent of their validity. We all want to be happy, 99% of us have to work and would like that endeavour to be a pleasant and rewarding; yet challenging experience. The problem is that not all of us will be great. If we believe in a meritous society where people get what they deserve. Where the best deserve the best and get the best the horrible corollary is that we have accepted that some people are shit and deserve shit. On a superficial level this might seem amusing and even true; people get what they deserve right? Well maybe not; there are so many other factors that warrant success that are not purely driven by the indivdual. Those who do well deserve to be rewarded but it does not imply that those at the bottom aren't worthy of greatness too. But not all of us can be creative writers or elite athletes. You can wish and you can try; but sometimes wishing and doing is not enough. In theory we can all be great at what we want (Watson would like this, Skinner too) we can try; but we will not all suceed.
Alain talked about how one drop of blood or one drop of saliva can have enough germs in it to kill an entire civilisation (possibly exaggerated; not sure) but the point is that one small comment from a teacher, friend, family member at some allegedly insignifcant moment may have made a derogatory comment about our acheivement, ability and efforts which like disease can spread and infect our entire sense of worth. Don't underestimate the power of small words esp. if they cut right to core of someone's identity. Some men were interviewed after they had lost their jobs recently and were asked what they really wanted to be and why they were not that. It was intriguing to see that grown men still haboured energies; which objectively appear trival, have hindered them for ever attempting to pursue it was that they always wanted. Comments made to a child at the age of 6 can have devasting affects that linger decades and decades later. This is not to say that we can not over come such barriers but how once we establish an identity it can be hard to change. But if you don't change for yourself in the end you will laid to rest in a very lonely grave.
This is an exerpt from Alain's website:
Logistics Two centuries ago, our forebears would have known the precise history and source of almost every one of the limited number of things they ate and owned. The range of items available for purchase may have grown exponentially since then, but our understanding of their genesis has grown ever more obscure. We are now as imaginatively disconnected from the distribution of our goods as we are practically in reach of them, a process of alienation which has stripped us of opportunities for wonder, gratitude and guilt. Critical to this imaginative impoverishment and practical enrichment is the field of industry known collectively as logistics, which comprises the arts of warehousing, transport, storage and data control.
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p.s I have had 12 hours sleep in last 72 hrs. My apologies for typos.
Jenda
