The Fruits of Labor

Some earlier thoughts here and here.

Winter is here, and the grass won't grow again until springtime.  The last mowing of the fall season was a few weeks ago.  I used to mow the lawn myself last year, but this year, it was difficult to find time as I was nursing my wife back to health.  I engaged a lawn mowing crew on a whim as they were busy in a neighboring yard.  They usually cut the grass in about twenty minutes, while it used to take me a few hours.  They had a bigger lawn mower, and there were two of them.  As they used to finish the job, it was a pleasure for me to see the neat lawn, and the clean patio without the little growths in the cracks.  I wondered whether they ever paused for a moment to appreciate their own work?  Probably not.

On an even more prosaic note, as I fold the clothes after a cycle of washing and drying, it is a pleasure to see the clean clothes, all fresh and neatly piled.  I remember when during my monastic years, I used to wash my clothes by hand, and gloated as I saw them drying in the sun and in the wind.  And as sometimes I bake a roti on the stovetop, what a pleasure to see it fluff up and become golden brown.

...

It occurs to me that there is no word for this pleasure.  The pleasure of seeing work completed in front of one's eyes.  I can only imagine the pleasure a bricklayer experiences after seeing a wall come up, the pleasure a road worker has as he sees the asphalt, or the pleasure of a cook seeing a meal fully cooked and laid out.

Of course, I also understand the drudgery of doing manual labor, day after day, and I imagine the pleasure diminishes soon.  The exhaustion and boredom must, over time, win over the subtle pleasure of fulfilment.

One of the essential differences between white collar and blue collar work is in the immediacy and tangibility of the results of one's work.  If the hard work with one's hands is tiring and usually pays little, the desk jobs are alienating.  People get their degrees in data processing, accounting and management so they can earn more by just tapping on the computer, instead of carrying heavy loads and getting their clothes dirty.

But as one gains a bank balance, there is a spiritual loss of not being able to find enough meaning in one's work.  The results of information work are ethereal.  The work is mental, and so are the results.  And the complexity of modern white collar work implies that it is accomplished by a team, with many members of the team adding a miniscule feature or factor to the end result.

There is a clear difference between writing a programming script oneself, and see it operate flawlessly and beautifully, contributing to an immediate saving of time, versus contributing to a complex software project, which ends up functional but ridden with problems and for which the "added value" is sometimes so trivial so as to be meaningless.

Consider for example the few pages of the Amazon.com's website.  The product search page, the product information page, and the checkout page.  Each of these is now a stable behemoth of code, to which the programming teams add a tiny tweak or feature to make it infinitesimally better.  I remember, when I worked for Amazon.com at one time, a whole group of genius youngsters worked on a feature to add news links for a product to its page.  That feature eventually got shelved, and never saw the light of the day.  The programmers got paid handsomely, but were they fulfilled?

Monetary compensation for one's work can only go so far to make one happy.  It is the meaning in one's work, and the skill and joy while doing that work, which also contributes to one's happiness.  In addition, it is evident that the camaraderie and the "buddy pleasure" of people working with their hands is very different than the politically correct, HR approved interaction in the sterile office cafeteria.

It is unfortunate that modern man has to choose either a hard life, or a life that offers little meaning.  Most choose the latter, because an aching body and an empty stomach rarely allow the luxury of being content with one's life.  Maslow may have been right, but what if as you move up the pyramid, the lower blocks fall away, leaving you perched and spiritually parched?

Even more importantly, what if the pyramid is wrong, and if reality is more intertwined?  What if self-actualization is a part of working with one's hands, and fighting to ward off danger?  What if an abundance of food and safety is spiritually starving?

(image credit)

It is perhaps for this reason that white collar workers get into the expensive hobbies of climbing mountains, cross-country hiking, or long-distance bicycling.  But these are "surrogate" activities, without inherent value.  These are imitations of a hard life, and therefore, in the end, unsatisfying.

I was once with a group of professional hikers.  They were competing to reach the summit of a beautiful mountain in the least amount of time.  They had no time to stop and marvel at the views, or to listen to the silence of the valley.  When we grouped together at the summit, they took a few photos, and then climbed down as quickly as they had ascended.  The "high" of that accomplishment was a "high five": one entirely of a social and peer-group kind, and if one of those competitive climbers was left alone, I imagine he would have felt rather empty and despondent.  

But perhaps I am wrong.  To each his own happiness, you say?  But then, why the modern epidemic of depression, seeking of mood alteration experiences, and the modern experience of anomie and alienation?

Being rich has its costs.