To Work Or Not To Work

It was, I believe, Buckminster Fuller who once stated that the proper job of mankind was to get back to what it was doing before some clown came along and said you had to work for a living. In a nutshell, that thought acted as a thesis in my recent 'undisclosed location' meeting.

While I cannot give specific details -- oath of secrecy and all that -- there was no doubt that the terms 'work' and 'job' came under close scrutiny. Not surprising, considering that both seem to be fading away rather quickly. Or so many thought, praising technological advances that would allow everyone to feed, clothe and house themselves without anyone doing a stitch of work. This position was buttressed by a slew of Venn diagrams, stochastic bends, pie charts ,scattergrams et cetera ad nauseam.

All this, of course was rubbish, and I quickly became a voice in the wilderness by stressing that jobs and work were essential. People need something TO DO, and always have. Way back when, that something was hunting and gathering. Then came agriculture, along with the concept of deferred gratification -- it is to that first farmer's everlasting credit that he (or more likely she) threw some seeds onto the ground and had the patience to await results. Then came industry, followed by our current technological revolution.

Throughout all this time, people worked. Serfs and peasants actually had little choice in the matter, but even their bosses, sundry lords knights and barons, worked. Warfare was mano e mano in those days, and to be successful, you had to work hard at it. At present, work and jobs has become so central to one's self esteem that when a person's job is lost, so is the person.

The reason is, at least to me, crystal clear: the link between person and job has become fixed, as in concrete. It is this aspect that cries out for more discussion, imaginative thinking, and the development of an action plan to move beyond this pairing.

The group, sad to say, was not overly interested, preferring to concentrate on bail outs, economic stimulus, debt reduction and the like, without really exploring the root cause, the need to be doing something that the person and the society values. Robert Frost summed up this position well in his poem "Two Tramps in Mudtime":

"Only when love and need are one
And the work is play for mortal stakes
Is the job ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sake."

Now if only the Great and the Good can start from the position outlined by Frost, there just might, might, be a way out of the employment mess we are in.

Just a thought, folks. Just a thought.