2.6 KiB
Thesis: Surprise:
[Van Neistat, "I Spent 1600 hours typing others books..."]
"find the thing that will pay you the most money for the skills you have, forget finding your passion... real life is going to hit you."
[Fade to black]
[Video of Thad]
I love you, Van. But no. That's not what work is for.
Yes, it's to provide the material things we need. But it also works on us. And you go on to say that your life's work might be something else than your career... which might be true. BUT...
[Quote block with Schumacher]
"It is work which occupies most of the energies of the human race, and what people actually do is normally more important, for understanding them, than what they say, or what they spend their money on, or what they own, or how they vote. A person's work is undoubtedly one of the most decisive formative influences on his character and personality."
Earn all the money you want and bring it home to your wife and kids. But you're bringing yourself home, too. Are you bringing home your best self? Is your work making you better or worse equipped for when you do these non-career things?
There is no work-life balance. Work forms the life.
The subject-object divide is a farce. In all actions, the subject is worked on just as the object is.
As we drove chisels into these timbers, forming them into something new, we were being formed as well. And a lot of us could feel it at the end of the day.
[Closeup of hand opening and closing]
And no, I don't just mean because we woke up with trigger finger, or sore necks.
Our work on these timbers was what made us more capable craftsmen.
[Adam explaining things]
The words of our instructor Adam, great as he was, were only the seeds which needed our laborious practice to germinate into actual competency and skill, and perhaps even virtue.
[Epiphanic sound effect]
Yes, virtue. Real virtue. The type that isn't just "I read about this and now I think I understand." The kind that's more lived than it is spoken of.
Every paring with a chisel builds attentiveness. The final push to complete timbers builds fortitude. Seeing someone more skilled than you do something you actually tried your hand at builds humility and reverence.
And there are the opportunities in the work where we can choose to practice a virtue or vise. Do I leave my workspace clean or messy? Am I friendly or rude to my co-workers? Do I offer advice and correction, or hoard knowledge?
This question of what work does to us is hardly asked. And if it is, it is rarely taken seriously. Well, maybe OSHA will step in if we're doing something that's clearly dangerous to body. But what about work that is perilous to our souls?