work eh?

A friend said to me recently on twitter that she was flat out working, that she had no time for her family and kids, and this just reawakened a notion in me that I've had for some time on the idea of Work.

I've been thinking about it recently long and hard and to be honest I'm getting really angry about the whole charade.

Lets see first up what is work?

Well its a means to provide for yourself and those you provide for isn't it? Back in the days when people looked after themselves with minimal input from well meaning organisations people 'worked'. Lets say for example a farmer. He got up when he needed to, toiled and got the results he needed, and life was not easy. He did what was needed to exist. Fed his family and sold the produce for money to buy things or traded and bartered as was the way at the time.

So what has happened? What is work now? Well as I see it this simple idea of toil producing results has been confused with greed and the insatiable appetite for money. The operation of farming animals, crops has become more and more widescale so now farms supply crops for supermarkets and the whole thing has gone global.

That seems fair enough, not everyone is a farmer and everyone needs to eat. So dead on. I'll accept that. But the same notion of making everything bigger and for profit seems to have been engrained in the social consciousness! It has come to the point where i ask what is the point of working? There are jobs out there that are simply made up to deal with policies and to deal with covering up peoples misfortunes or accidental mishaps. Jobs that are made up and quite frankly I couldn't tell you what in under God the job has as a basic funtion or what indeed does it actually do!

This comes to the fore when I look for employment. I scan through the pages of the paper or online job websites and I end up scratching my head at the majority of positions and the information relating to its function.

Anyway I digress. What I was thinking about was the fact that people seem to feel the need to work so that they cannot actually function in life. People miss the point of life. Work is not there to do whilst you occupy your little space on this planet, although It seems thats what the people who want to make money love to instill in your heart.

"Oh yes, yr man O'Neill he was a hard working fella, all his life!" a lovely thing to say about a person who has now passed, but i would much rather be thought of as "oh yes, McCann, he always had time for his friends and family, he enjoyed life! Mightn't have been that well off, but he was surely happy!"

Who says you have to work within an inch of your life~? who does? who benefits? Is it you? I think not! Is it someone who has as little concern for you as he does the gum on his shoe? yeah more than probably.

Out comes the old adage "do you live to work or work to live?" and I use it for it is true.

Anyone who is of any use to the world, you will find can negotiate his own timetable, does his/her own thing.

High powered businessmen with cars and lots of material possessions? With gorgeous wives? sure on the surface it may look fantastic but its like driving a speedboat, feels great, then after two hours its the most soul destroying thing on the planet. (trust me on that one)

I read an article the other day about a nurse who looked after people on their deathbed, and you know what she said was the most uttered regret from people (and she stated all the men she treated) it was "i wish I hadn't have worked so hard!"

Think of that next time someone asks you to do something and you know in your heart you have no time, or simply don't want to.

I'll leave you with another quote and this is one to live by.

"To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea... "cruising" it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.

"I've always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can't afford it." What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of "security." And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone.

What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all - in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade.

The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.

Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?"

Sterling Hayden.