Work Ethics
for release 11-15-06
Washington D.C.
What is work? In thermodynamics it is the amount of energy transferred to a system. In physics it is Mass x Gravity x Distance. If you applied 2 newtons of force to a chair and you moved it 5 meters; you will have done 10 Joules of work. Work is measured in newton-meters or Joules.
Another definition of work is: a product produced or accomplished through the effort or activity or agency of a person or thing, like a work of art.
Some people think that work is measured by how much you get paid for it. To them, work means simply having a job.
To some, work is measured by how much you are suffering while you do it. The increments of grunting and sweating and hours spent away from your family, etc. Work could be defined as anything you do when you would rather be doing something else.
This whole discussion depends on which definition of work works for you.
You can work the soil or work the phones or work a crossword puzzle. You can work the clay or work the dough or work your muscles. You can work an equation. You can even work the system.
Excuse me, I'm having a George Carlin moment here.
You can work the crowd or work the radio or work the saxophone. In this sense it means to make something function properly and when it doesn't function properly we say it doesn't work, as in, "the war in Iraq is not working."
You can workout, be a workhorse, a piece of work (as distinct from piecework or working for peace), you can have workloads and workshops (which are much more honorable than sweatshops), You can do daywork, nightwork, part-time work and side-work and a woman's work is never done and if that's not workable for you, become a man and you'll get equal pay for equal work. You can work on the clock, by the hour and when you get forty of them you have a work week. On every Monopoly board you can find the Water Works. Workman's compensation is for men who can't work. You can do good works or productive work or busy work or shit work or we can work it out. Some people are always looking for work which is the hardest job in the world besides trying to look like you are working. It registers somewhere between root canals and proctological exams on the comfort meter. But that's ok because most people can't tell if you are working hard or hardly working.
All my life I have heard of this thing they call the 'work ethic''. It has something to do with being a Protestant I think. Work is considered a virtue. Go figure.
My work ethic is simple: I avoid it whenever possible. But if something needs to be done, I try to work smart so that I don't have to work hard.
Part of my job as a poet is to figure out how things work, the subtle mechanics of love, society, passion and politics. This is hard work but it's not easy to see.
The hardest work I do is invisible. It's called Thinking. It is a more subtle kind of work--Effort applied across Time.
My trouble is that when I'm working, when I do the hardest work that I do, I look like I am loafing--staring off into space.
"I loaf and invite my soul."--Whitman.
The first time that this problem was made apparent to me was when I was in little league baseball. I was a shortstop. I was a good shortstop. I caught the ball and I made the throw. My problem was that I made it look too easy. I didn't grunt and sweat enough, I just got the job done. The coach wanted to see copious grunting and sweating. He wanted to see me work.
I have this little peculiarity (one among many.) I don't want anybody to see me work. It embarrasses me. My mother always told me, "Never let them see you sweat." I like to work in private the same way as I like to pray in private.
The question becomes, is work a matter of how hard you try or what you accomplish? Work has nothing to do with how hard you try in my definition, it has only to do with what you accomplish.
You could put your shoulder against the Great Pyramid and push and push with all your might and sweat and grunt and you could do this for eight hours a day for a hundred years and still you are not going to move the pyramid. That's pointless work. (see Sisyphus)
One night Ben Franklin came to me in a dream. He said, "Lightning Rod, to be as lazy as we are, you have to be brilliant." This dream occurred after I had read a piece of historical trivia about Franklin attributing most of his best inventions to his native laziness. They were meant to save work.
The carpenter's rule is: Think thrice, measure twice, cut once.
If you don't do the thinking, then you are likely to cut thrice which is a waste of both material and energy. In other words, if you don't work smart, then you are destined to work hard.
The Poet's Eye blinks lazily. Is this working for you?
I'll learn to work the saxophone
I'll play just what I feel
Drink scotch whisky all night long
And die behind the wheel
----Steely Dan, Deacon Blues
Breaking rocks out here on the chain gang
Breaking rocks and serving my time
Breaking rocks out here on the chain gang
Because they done convicted me of crime
Hold it steady right there while I hit it
well I reckon that ought to get it
been
working and working
but I still got so terribly far to go
-- Oscar Brown jr, Nat Adderley
I didn't come here for a long time
I came here for a good time.
---Lightning Rod
