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You are what you love

gspanos.tech

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Re: You are what you love

#31

Post by brabel »

inertiatic wrote: post #2

>I find it really challenging to talk with people who have completely separated their work from their emotional being. For me, work is part of life and it should be a meaningful one. I like my work too but when I hear things like this it's so hard not to cringe because of how much of a place of privilege this comes from. Most jobs are things no one would want to do if they didn't need to survive, and that's fundament…

Before the modern age, most humans worked in agriculture. Really, really hard work, day in day out, no vacations, no sick days, you had to be there no matter the weather (except extreme events where your live would be endangered too much, probably). It's amazing how today we can actually even think that "work should be a meaningful part of life" rather than just a means to keep you alive. Today, I would say most people still do either menial jobs or "pointless" jobs that they have very little emotional attachment to. They do it because they must do something to survive. But there's also the higher ups who don't really love at all what they're doing, but feel like they need to keep "going up", from engineer to "lead" to C-level to CEO to founder etc. I don't think anyone really loves doing those things (except extremely narcissists who feel pleasure being in charge), they do it because they know that they have the potential to do it and they feel social pressure to climb the ladder. If we lived in a completely equal society where CEOs were not seen as "higher" than individual contributors, and consequently didn't receive ridiculously larger paychecks, who in their right mind would choose to do that? Even though I do enjoy my job, I am pretty sure that's in large part because I managed, like most other well functioning adults, to rationalize my situation so that I don't feel like working day in day out on my desk it not a stupidly pointless way to spend life - and pretend like I wouldn't much rather be surfing in the Pacific islands, working as a bartender at night, sharing stories by a fire on the beach until sunrise, living the simple life without responsibilities.

Re: You are what you love

#32

Post by wegfawefgawefg »

wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #20
akolbe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aye, you put your finger on something there. Reminds me of how common it is for menial jobs to be outsourced to immigrants or seasonal labour. Fruit picking in the UK to Eastern Europeans, agricultural work in Israel to Thais, etc. Someone has to empty the bins. I guess like anything emptying bins is a job you can enjoy more or less, depending on your inner attitude to doing it, and your ability to "make the best of…

Ironically emptying the bins and picking fruits might be more directly meaningful for people then building the new generation ad platform/social media/saas tool.

Its for the mental exercise, and the practice. But if i had to do it a second time id kill myself.

Re: You are what you love

#33

Post by TacticalCoder »

Dachande663 wrote: post #8

I used to be the same. Until I started a family. You suddenly realise how… unimportant coding is when you have people who depend on you and you them. I’m a different developer now than I was back then, but I think better for it.

> Until I started a family.

I'm 51 and I've got a family too (9 years old kid) and my love for coding and tinkering with computers never went away. For example yesterday evening when they were asleep I spent hours playing with a (used) NUC I just bought. I did hack on some scripts too.

My hobbies are my cars and computing and I love that, since forever. And I still love these even though I've got a family.

I'd argue that something that you love and that you suddenly don't love anymore once you have kids is something you didn't really love that much.

A family and a love for the craft are definitely not mutually exclusive things.

Re: You are what you love

#34

Post by nonrandomstring »

inertiatic wrote: post #2

>I find it really challenging to talk with people who have completely separated their work from their emotional being. For me, work is part of life and it should be a meaningful one. I like my work too but when I hear things like this it's so hard not to cringe because of how much of a place of privilege this comes from. Most jobs are things no one would want to do if they didn't need to survive, and that's fundament…

Isn't fixating on "privilege" a way of avoiding more troubling thoughts far beyond guilt? As if God made some people rich and some poor, and that's the way the world is. Let's all say a prayer for them?

The Protestant work ethic once contained many good things like a sense of duty, efficiency, self-discipline and so on. Emancipation of others, and helping others out of poverty was always built into that!

But under late stage capitalism it becomes disfigured and twisted.

That guilt is used against us. We make "work" into something that must be miserable by definition. And some of us even revel in that self-flagellation. We stop distinguishing between laborious chores and work as art and living. "Money and survival" eclipse all else. The abject penury of that mind-set is a sort of work in itself.

It need not be. Ten thousand years of artisan labour, craftsmanship, labours of love building cathedrals and monuments, cooking delicious meals... Half of all the work done in the world is childcare and caring for the old.

It's the power relations of capitalism that make work shitty, and we all know it. There's nothing "fundamental" about it. We are at a very unique and hopefully short moment in history where modern employers will go out of their way to fit suffering, humiliation and self-loathing into the job-description, maybe in order to feel justified for what they pay - often cynically hiding behind false notions of efficiency and necessity, security or whatever.

Some of the most miserable and fucked-up people I've ever met work in banking, advertising. and other places of "privilege".

Re: You are what you love

#35

Post by elteto »

jasongi wrote: post #30
wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically emptying the bins and picking fruits might be more directly meaningful for people then building the new generation ad platform/social media/saas tool.

Picking fruit would have been incredibly meaningful if you had spent the year doing the variety of agricultural activities leading up to it. There’s a reason so many cultures had harvest festivals. But now rather than a whole area getting together to literally pick the fruits of their year-long labour and celebrate we’ve optimised the process by just bringing in some seasonal workers.

So you want all of NYC to have harvest festivals?

Those traditions and rituals are alive and well in small communities. Modern agriculture is based on the need to feed millions and millions of people. That’s why it is the way it is.

Re: You are what you love

#36

Post by fzeroracer »

I get why someone would believe this, but it's so disconnected from reality for the majority of people. It comes from a place where you haven't been concerned about needing to live. About feeding yourself or your family, having stability, getting out of debt.

I'm lucky enough to be doing what I love, but I got here by being good enough at doing what I don't love.

Re: You are what you love

#37

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

brabel wrote: post #31
inertiatic wrote: post #2

>I find it really challenging to talk with people who have completely separated their work from their emotional being. For me, work is part of life and it should be a meaningful one. I like my work too but when I hear things like this it's so hard not to cringe because of how much of a place of privilege this comes from. Most jobs are things no one would want to do if they didn't need to survive, and that's fundament…

Before the modern age, most humans worked in agriculture. Really, really hard work, day in day out, no vacations, no sick days, you had to be there no matter the weather (except extreme events where your live would be endangered too much, probably). It's amazing how today we can actually even think that "work should be a meaningful part of life" rather than just a means to keep you alive. Today, I would say most peop…

> Before the modern age, most humans worked in agriculture. Really, really hard work, day in day out, no vacations, no sick days, you had to be there no matter the weather (except extreme events where your live would be endangered too much, probably).

Btw this is simply not true. People worked less in agriculture than a 9-5. You’d only really be working hard at specific times of the year- harvesting, seeding, etc. You’d be doing other things like working on the house, feeding various animals, churning butter or making clothes, etc, in the in-between.

Re: You are what you love

#38

Post by richrichie »

brabel wrote: post #31
inertiatic wrote: post #2

>I find it really challenging to talk with people who have completely separated their work from their emotional being. For me, work is part of life and it should be a meaningful one. I like my work too but when I hear things like this it's so hard not to cringe because of how much of a place of privilege this comes from. Most jobs are things no one would want to do if they didn't need to survive, and that's fundament…

Before the modern age, most humans worked in agriculture. Really, really hard work, day in day out, no vacations, no sick days, you had to be there no matter the weather (except extreme events where your live would be endangered too much, probably). It's amazing how today we can actually even think that "work should be a meaningful part of life" rather than just a means to keep you alive. Today, I would say most peop…

Not quite day in and day out. Agricultural work pre modern times was seasonal.

Re: You are what you love

#39

Post by quonn »

mettamage wrote: post #15
c0balt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which jobs are you considering no one would want to do? Not OP but most low-skill, sanitation-related jobs are most likely the best example. There certainly is craftsmanship behind cleaning but it mostly boils down to hard physical labor.

I once had a conversation with a cleaner, she liked it because she could listen to Spotify podcasts all day (she was working as a cleaner in Sweden).

I can confirm this, I know a cleaner like that as well. Additionally the work is not that physically taxing for the most part and there is no struggle involved like in many problem solving jobs. It‘s often poorly paid but that depends a lot on the country.

Re: You are what you love

#40

Post by elteto »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #33
Dachande663 wrote: post #8

I used to be the same. Until I started a family. You suddenly realise how… unimportant coding is when you have people who depend on you and you them. I’m a different developer now than I was back then, but I think better for it.

> Until I started a family. I'm 51 and I've got a family too (9 years old kid) and my love for coding and tinkering with computers never went away. For example yesterday evening when they were asleep I spent hours playing with a (used) NUC I just bought. I did hack on some scripts too. My hobbies are my cars and computing and I love that, since forever. And I still love these even though I've got a family. I'd argue…

Let’s not pass judgement on what other people love or not. You simply have no idea.

There are many things I love but since I got a family I just don’t have time for them. Or if I have the time I realize there’s a million other things I can be doing with my family.

You have cars and coding. You spend time on those hobbies and presumably not with your family. OP just realized he’d rather spend it with his family.

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