[HN Gopher] The Effects of Meaningless Work
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The Effects of Meaningless Work
Author : worgman32
Score : 19 points
Date : 2024-07-12 12:09 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (iamevan.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (iamevan.me)
| Avid8329 wrote:
| I'm so happy to see one of the greatest 20th century American
| poets quoted right at the beginning! Elizabeth Bishop was
| amazing! Something fun to do at work is to read her
| correspondence with another great 20th century poet, Robert
| Lowell (Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between
| Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell).
| feoren wrote:
| So the advice is:
|
| * Find meaning outside work, with the five hours per week you
| have between working full time, commuting (hopefully not as much
| anymore), and taking care of your kids and yourself. Hours during
| which you're completely exhausted and mentally drained.
|
| * The same advice again, but while touching grass.
|
| * Become labeled as negative, get union-busted.
|
| * Quit and go to another bullshit job where the exact same cycle
| will repeat.
|
| Look, I'm not actually saying this advice is wrong, or that it
| should be better advice. I'm saying that this stated goal:
|
| > When I set out to finally put all these thoughts down in text,
| I did not want it to be all doom and gloom
|
| was not achieved by the author. It _is_ all doom and gloom.
| Because bullshit work really does kill your soul, and the best
| advice we can come up with for dealing with that is awful. Many,
| many smart people have spent a LOT of money and effort organizing
| the American capitalist system (and those in other countries, to
| varying degrees of success) so that you have absolutely no power
| to improve your situation, ever. Turning us all back into serfs
| is their intentional, focused goal, and has been for many
| decades, and they are _invested_ in it, and they are _good_ at
| it. It 's only going to continue to get worse. You cannot do
| anything about it. Everything only ever gets worse.
| FloorEgg wrote:
| Disclaimer: I haven't read the article.
|
| I'm just responding to the end of your comment.
|
| As someone who has spent years doing unimportant work that I
| was able to find some meaning in, and who has made sacrifices
| in order to expand my opportunities and eventually consistently
| find work that is important and meaningful, I totally disagree
| with your message.
|
| I understand there are a lot of pitfalls people can get stuck
| in and most things aren't as good as they could be... But that
| doesn't mean everything is awful or that everything is getting
| worse overall on average.
|
| I mean this in the most constructive way possible: I think you
| could benefit a lot from cognitive behavioral therapy.
|
| Few things that helped me tremendously...
|
| Victor Frankel - Man's Search for Meaning Marcus Aurelius -
| Meditations (or Ryan Holiday if you don't have the patience)
|
| I am not religious but this prayer helped me a lot:
|
| Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The
| courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the
| difference.
|
| You aren't asking for help, and I understand that these
| suggestions may just piss you off... But if there is a small
| chance they help you or anyone else who sees them that feels
| similar to you, then they are worth sharing.
|
| The world doesn't get better with apathy or victimhood or
| defeatism, it gets better by accepting reality as it really is
| and then getting to work on it. You are surrounded by
| meaningful work, it just seems like you have been tricked into
| not seeing it.
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(page generated 2024-07-12 23:01 UTC)