SWIMfriend, I like your talk about examining ones own life, and motivations. However, your practical advice seems both flawed, and contradictory.
SWIMfriend wrote:^^ There are two burdens that one is under doing work:
1) The actual burden of the work. But actually, this is not much. Everything we do is..."some kind of work."
2) The CONTEXT of the work (usually, the REASON we are doing the work). Perhaps you like to play video games, and wouldn't at all consider that work. But if you were FORCED to play them at the point of a gun, for eight hours straight, five days a week--I think you would get sick of those games very quickly.
Right.... but this seems to support the idea that work blows. It suggests that if you can easily get sick of doing even simple things that you like doing, how on earth are you going to enjoy actual work for pay? Other than the reward of getting paid for it?
Quote: A personal example: the idea of working X hours to earn Y dollars is truly repugnant to me personally. But I'd GLADLY work with PLEASURE doing exactly the same tasks, just to feel I was helping out a friend. It wouldn't be the WORK that was bothering me (and, with the right ATTITUDE, one can take pleasure from MOST activities), it would be the REASON I was doing the work. So...if one can alter the REASON, then the drudgery can be altered as well.
OK, but this to me doesn't suggest that you will like working, it suggests you don't like the structure that most jobs require of their workers. You may not mind doing stuff for your friend, but if your friend demanded you do x amount of work for him and stick to a tight deadline, you would get sick of that too. So, to me, you're not really saying if one can alter the reason they work, then the drudgery will be decreased. You're saying if you alter the structure in which work is done, then it won't be as burdensome. For example, doing the work whenever you feel like and not working too hard, or working because it is demanded, and no real consequences if you don't meet your friend/boss' expectations. I agree, if you can find a job like that, then go for it. I haven't found anything like that myself.
Quote: A good example might be something physical--cutting lawns or digging ditches. Most people would consider that HARD WORK--to be avoided. But then again, many people PAY for the opportunity to do hard work, when they join a gym and go workout.
The reasoning is flawed. I have had very physical jobs, and I went in with the same thinking you present. I thought the hard work would be good for me. Wrong. Physical labor is not the same as exercise. Most people don't dig ditches for a living because most of them would end up with chronic back problems and other muscular/skeletal problems. I go to the gym to do healthy exercise that will actually be good for me. If digging ditches was actually a good, healthy exercise, then I would just do that instead of going to the gym. But digging is not particularly good exercise. It does require muscle and heart use, however, it is more likely to strain. Plus, I wouldn't want to be at a gym for more than 2 hours max. Ditch diggers dig all day long, which greatly increases the chance of strain. Ditch digging is probably likely to make most people weaker, not stronger. I realize that diggers have their place in the world, I'm just saying, I wouldn't fool myself in to thinking that digging all day is good for me. If I could find a way out of a ditch digging job, I would. It would only be something I would if I had to.
Quote: The same can be true of most kinds of work--to utterly change your REASONS for the work can utterly change the EXPERIENCE of the work. To do work purely as a personal discipline, or to watch a simple "number" in your bank account grow to a certain point, can DISPEL A GREAT DEAL OF EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE regarding work...and drudgery.
I'm not so sure. You say that if you change the way you think about your work, that will make the work more tolerable. I worked in a factor assembly line. I would do the same single task all day. It was not difficult, it was just mind numbing. By the time I got out of there, my mind felt like mush. It was like I could literally feel my brain wasting away. It didn't matter what I thought of the job, my mind felt like crap by the time I was done. It didn't matter what I thought of the job, my opinion on the whole experience was irrelevant. The job had an impact on my mind. It was an impact that I didn't like.
When I see you say, "do work purely as a form of personal discipline", to me that's almost like saying, "just give up on what you really want". I could have stayed at that factory job for the rest of my life. I could have said, "ok, I'll let my mind just stay dormant the whole time and do it for the discipline." But you see, I wouldn't
want that type of discipline. Why would I want to develop the kind of discipline to put myself through crappy stuff for no reward? If I had no choice but to develop that type of discipline, then I would, but why would I just for the sake of it? I know this topic is not about me, it's about the op, but what I'm saying is relevant because the op has expressed the same things I have.
Your advice is contradictory because you suggested the op avoid the rat race, but then you suggested he work longer than normal hours so that he can afford a house faster. That sounds like the rat race to me.
SWIMfriend wrote: Nevertheless, we all have to find ways to LIVE--even in an environment we may find oppressive or adversarial--but we DON'T have to blind ourselves to OURSELVES. We DON'T have to mindlessly do drudgery and try to IGNORE how we feel, or TWIST our minds to try to pretend that we like it. And REALIZING THAT, it can then, paradoxically, become possible to perform some things that could be considered "drudgery," now that one's mind is free from the pain and dissonance of trying to AVOID realization of such things.
Quote: People end up twisting their lives in ENORMOUSLY bizarre directions, in order to avoid facing some simple truths about their life and their circumstances. One can sometimes find that just FACING THE TRUTHS takes away a lot of the pain and drudgery (and I DON'T mean something like saying "yeah, work is drudgery, but I gotta live, so I have to sell my soul in this culture" ).
Are you suggesting that people twisting their lives in bizarre directions is bad? Because you suggested the OP work crazy long hours just for the sake of it, while at the same time saying don't go in to the rat race. Does that not count as a bizarre twist? The last sentence particularly confuses me. You say that facing the truth can take away the drudgery of work, but you don't mean, "yeah, work is drudgery, but I gotta live, so I have to sell my soul in this culture". That seems like the truth you were referring to. How is that not a truth?