Continuing to search for a new definition of "work"
Recently, after some weeks of further reading, I realised that an article I had written in this very same portal had laid the foundations for further reflection on the same subject, inspired by the following question-hypothesis: what changes need to happen, or be provoked, so that the concept of "work" becomes more adjusted to today's reality and provides a higher level of health and satisfaction for those who work?
One of the proposals that has most excited me, on the one hand, and confused me, on the other, is the one that defends the idea that "leisure is the basis of culture". The enthusiasm is due to the interest it arouses in me and to the pertinence, clarity and timeliness that I recognise in the idea - even though it was compiled on the basis of lectures that the author gave in 1947. The confusion arises from knowing that I am not yet able to live with that basis, that I do not yet have the concepts incorporated - although I understand them rationally, I think and hope - nor have I found concrete strategies that can be applied, first of all by me and, perhaps, by others.
I do not intend to bore you, dear reader, with a summary of the very interesting and pertinent work of the German philosopher Josef Pieper. Rather, I will try to explore some of the basic concepts by contrasting them with some phenomena I have observed in the world of work, where I am also an inhabitant and contributor.
Today, and apparently already in the 40s and 50s of the last century, this is how it was seen or, at least, foreseen: leisure moments only seem to have space and time to take place during work interruptions. Work and leisure, like water and oil, do not mix. Apparently for the same reasons: they are composed of "incompatible" substances. It seems strange that this should be so, given the importance of leisure in Western culture, which can be attested to by the history of the word: one of the close meanings in Greek is skhole, and in Latin schola, which gave rise to the word "school". Therefore, historically, leisure is very close to the space dedicated to education and learning, which today seem to serve, almost exclusively, as preparation for the world of work: the school as a "factory of workers".
This must be why, when I was studying, I heard my elders advising me: "enjoy this time, because when you start working the 'good life' will be over". This perspective has always intrigued me. How at 23 the "good life" would end, especially when I didn't think that life was so good. And what to do with the 50 years or so, on average, that I still had left? Was I destined to live a bad life? It seems to me now that such advice was due to the paradigm that the German philosopher called "total work": a world where everything, or almost everything, revolves around work, and where people define themselves and their existence by and for work.
We won't be that far from that world. Just look at the sense of need for 'effective planning' to book, take and even enjoy holidays; or, for example, an almost constant obsession with doing something useful or productive with free time.
Maybe the solution is not in transforming workplaces into places where, apparently, there is time and space for leisure. It will not be the ping-pong tables, the table football, the poufs, the happy hours, the inspirational quotes scattered on the walls that will make people incorporate leisure while they work. In seeking to inspire people to aspire to find meaning in work3, companies, which also happen to be made of people, have produced a lot of bullshit 4.
Perhaps the solution lies in looking at leisure differently - not being the result of external factors, not being the consequence of finding free time, a holiday or holiday. As Pieper tells us, leisure is a mental and spiritual attitude that, unlike the incessant search for activity and productivity of the modern "worker", seeks a non-activity - which is not the same as inactivity -, an inner silence and calm that is the opposite of occupation and worry. It is a state in which we let things happen, able to be attentive to reality, to grasp it, to contemplate it and then to be able to create.
The difficult thing will be, first of all, to legitimise and value this way of being, being and doing while working. I suspect, from my own experience, that the greatest difficulty will be to change ourselves in this sense, before expecting to see any change in others or in institutions.
1. "Towards a new definition of work"
2. Pieper, J. (1963) Leisure: The basis of Culture, Random House, Inc.
