A Social Act
And so to work. I found myself grumbling inwardly as I showered at 6am, fretting that I have to work instead of enjoying this beautiful city as a tourist. At breakfast, the view from the hotel restaurant (across the river to Castle Hill in Buda) increased my disgruntlement. I gave myself a "stop whining" pep talk and began to think about my reasons for working. After all, when I was a teenager in the 1980s, many people were completely devastated by a lack of available work. The effects seemed to extend well beyond the economic domain and into far more personal territory such as identity and self-worth. For me, identity derived from work isn't really an issue. Of course, I work for money; although he generates his own income, the care and feeding of Monsieur Mange-Tout is a costly business. But I feel I have other reasons, too. So what are they?
The excellent breakfast coffee cheered me up and reminded me of some training sessions I attended last week. The topic was ways of teaching writing, and began with an assertion by one of the speakers that writing is a social act. I laughed inwardly when I first heard this, thinking that some writing appears to have much less social value than other kinds. Thinking on, though, it occurred to me that each piece written does represent an attempt by the author to apply their expertise for the benefit of others - social intent is always there, however technial the topic. What varies is the degree of accessibility of authorial thought to the intended audience.
Likewise, for me at least, working is a social act. I have expertise and it's satisfying to overcome resistance from my slothful nature to deploy this expertise. I think of the wild birds that visit my garden and how tragic it would be to imprison one of them in a cage. Working is like that. Banged up tight in the jail of my skull, expertise gradually dies off - its acquisition, though fun, was ultimately futile. Set free into the world it actually does something constructive.
Having established that to my satisfaction, I then, as I now should, stopped procrastinating and got down to it.
The excellent breakfast coffee cheered me up and reminded me of some training sessions I attended last week. The topic was ways of teaching writing, and began with an assertion by one of the speakers that writing is a social act. I laughed inwardly when I first heard this, thinking that some writing appears to have much less social value than other kinds. Thinking on, though, it occurred to me that each piece written does represent an attempt by the author to apply their expertise for the benefit of others - social intent is always there, however technial the topic. What varies is the degree of accessibility of authorial thought to the intended audience.
Likewise, for me at least, working is a social act. I have expertise and it's satisfying to overcome resistance from my slothful nature to deploy this expertise. I think of the wild birds that visit my garden and how tragic it would be to imprison one of them in a cage. Working is like that. Banged up tight in the jail of my skull, expertise gradually dies off - its acquisition, though fun, was ultimately futile. Set free into the world it actually does something constructive.
Having established that to my satisfaction, I then, as I now should, stopped procrastinating and got down to it.
posted by Botyris at 12:16 PM
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