“Work is the refuge of people who have nothing whatsoever to do.” — Oscar Wilde

“God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables – slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. Without a purpose or a place.” — Chuck Palahniuk – Fight Club

What is work, really?

When we talk about work, we usually think of salary, working hours, bonuses, job satisfaction, career prospects, and opportunities to use our skills.
But… what, exactly, is work?

I recently rewatched “Cast Away,” a movie in which Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks), a consummate corporate man, ends up on a deserted island as the sole survivor of a plane crash and—like a modern-day Robinson Crusoe—must devise strategies for his own survival at every turn: where to find water, how to get something to eat, how to build a shelter, grappling with the fact that a whole range of things we take for granted in our civilization are by no means guaranteed, but in fact require genius, ingenuity, and… work.

What a deserted island can teach us about work

I couldn’t help but wonder how much sense our usual discussions about work would make under such conditions: who would talk about hours, schedules, breaks, sick leave, salary negotiations, workers’ rights, benefits… nor would complaints, protests, victimhood, excuses, justifications or explanations be of much use.

It would be an experience that would do many people good and clarify certain aspects of reality for them, when the usual strategies for manipulating the environment make no sense at all: they would discover that reality is completely indifferent to our needs and, above all, is not open to negotiation; they would discover that at every moment of our lives we must face a “situation” by acting and making choices: some of these choices will be successful, others will not; some will allow you to survive, others will not.

So, what is “work”? According to the best definition I’ve found, “work” is simply what we must do in a given situation to obtain what we need.

From survival to a hyper-specialized society

If we project ourselves from our deserted island—a situation where we would have to handle every aspect of survival and where we would be entirely responsible for the results we achieve—to our hyper-technological, hyper-connected, hyper-busy, hyper-specialized society—where the goal is to find a micro-task to take care of, through which we create value that will be converted into money, which in turn will be exchanged for goods and services that interest us—the definition remains the same: work remains the activity through which we respond to reality and obtain what we need.

It’s important to reiterate this, because there’s a risk that social complexity will cause us to lose sight of the essentials: in one situation, “work” might mean laying bricks; in another, it might mean complaining to the party secretary, or filling out form after form to receive a government bonus; it might be repairing cars, selling door to door, negotiating billion-dollar deals, mugging passers-by, picking tomatoes or submitting to exploitation… and it is precisely the “situation” or “reality” that will determine which of these behaviors would be effective and socially acceptable: obviously, we cannot evaluate by the same standard what we would be willing to do in today’s society versus what we would do in the event of war or famine, or if we found ourselves prisoners in a concentration camp.

Why “work to live or live to work?” is the wrong question

So, asking ourselves whether we work to live or live to work doesn’t make much sense, because it implies that work is a “separate” part of life. Obviously, this isn’t about giving in to the usual motivational rhetoric (“Find what you love to do, find a way to get paid for it, and you’ll never work a day in your life” is one of the many pieces of nonsense we’re fed by so-called success gurus, but—like so many others—it makes no sense), but simply to understand that what we call work can, under certain circumstances, completely occupy our lives (if we happen to be on a deserted island) or not at all, if we are retired, ultra-wealthy, or being supported by someone else.

Paradoxically, the situation many dream of—one in which we do NOT have to work to live—is actually the least desirable: in fact, very often it is precisely those who are retired or who have inherited a fortune who are constantly plagued by depression and a sense of worthlessness, and who desperately seek something to do to give meaning to their lives.

When work becomes an escape

All of this brings us right to the point: most people live in a state of “quiet desperation,” as Thoreau put it, and work becomes a way to avoid having to face the emptiness of their own existence—a necessary anesthetic to avoid confronting the absurdity of life and its lack of meaning.

For some people, compulsive work becomes a way of escaping that emptiness. Even outstanding professional success can be driven less by fulfilment than by the need never to stop and ask what it is all for.

Technology has made it possible, at least for some people and professions, to meet their material needs with far less labour than would once have been required.
But if we succeed—despite all our fantasies of spending our days on the beach or on a never-ending vacation—it would force us to confront the despair and emptiness of our existence: with enough money and free time, most people would spend their time watching TV and, likely, consuming alcohol or drugs. The lives of the “celebrities” we envy should teach us something.

The real question is meaning

So the real question isn’t how much of our existence should be devoted to work—which, as I’ve said, can vary depending on the situation—but rather the “meaning” (which, as I repeat at every opportunity, in Italian and other Romance languages, the word for “meaning” is “senso”, and can be used as  “direction” and as “significance”) we ascribe to our existence: if we find it, all questions are pointless; if we do not find it, all questions are also pointless.

by Bruno