Lex Anteinternet: Work with meaning and the meaning of work.

Lex Anteinternet: Work with meaning and the meaning of work.: 

Work with meaning and the meaning of work.

You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.

Blondie, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

I have a theory that certain work is existential by nature.  My post on that from several months ago:

A conversation with an old friend. The Good Death, and the Good Life and Existential Occupations.

Why do I note this?

Well I've had a bunch of synchronicitous events happen recently that perhaps demand it being noted, assuming that anything must be noted here at all.  Because they're all sort of circular, I'll start in one spot and gather the round corral, noting that these recollections are all recent, but not chronological.

I was walking out of the sporting goods store and ran into a law school colleague.  For some reason or another, for much of my life, I've always been the youngest person in a group as a rule, even when I really shouldn't have been.  Anyhow, this fellow, like two other of my law school friends, was an older law student, in law school, although I'm not sure how old he really was then,  Two of my other friends, both Vietnam War era veterans, were in their 40s, so they're in their mid 70s now.  I think this fellow was probably in his mid to late 30s.  He remained remarkably the same looking all that time.

He kind of bounced around at first as a lawyer before landing in a firm where he practiced for maybe 20 years.  He's retired now, and has been for awhile.  He asked me if I was getting ready to retire, which I indicated I wasn't, but I did ask him about the process, and he gave me some details of how he'd gone about it.  

Good to know from somebody who has done it.

He doesn't miss practicing at all.

In contrast to this, a close friend of mine, well really a relative, who is a lawyer who must be crowding 70 told me the other day he's not going to.  He'd miss the collegiality of being a lawyer.

That answer shocked me.  Not that he wasn't going to retire, but the collegiality.

Eh?

It may be just me, but only a handful of my friends are lawyers.  I do have some lawyer friends.  But most of my friends aren't lawyers and never have been.  I wouldn't miss most lawyers whatsoever.  Indeed, I miss a lot of my genuinely close friends due to the practice of law.

This, frankly, is probably an exception to the rule.  Law is a unique profession, litigation with in the law even more so, and by and large the onliy people who have a grasp on what it is like are other lawyers.  It is, I suppose, kind of like being a combat veteran that way.  Lawyers hang out with other lawyers as they're lawyers.  

Indeed, being heavily introverted, I've often noted how much lawyers enjoy professional gatherings. They really do.  There are organizations that we're all part of and we'll go to a conference and there will be a big dinner or something, everyone goes.

Unless my spouse is with me, or one of the few lawyers I really know well and like, I tend to avoid those gatherings.

Anyhow this takes me to a second point.

I know a couple of lawyers who have lost their souls.

I don't mean in a metaphysical sense.  That is, I'm not saying they're condemned to Hell.  What I'm saying is that their personalities are gone and been absorbed by false ones in the pursuit of nothing more than money.

It happens to people.  It's not a pleasant thing to see.  

I was never friends with either of the ones I have in mind.  Interestingly, however, one seems to be trying to emerge.  One, who sank into this a long time ago actually started talking to me the other day about what he was going to do "next", something he's never said before.

A really good lawyer friend of mine is mostly retired.  Like the fellow I mentioned above, while he had his doubts, he hasn't missed the practice at all.

Another good lawyer friend of mine, a woman, is trying to transition from one practice to another.

Two women I know otherwise recently lost their jobs. They weren't lawyers.

I note that as I think women in particular are subject to the Capitalist lie that careers are existentially defining, a completely modern notion.

St Paul was a tent maker.  St. Peter a fisherman.  I don't know if there are any classic Medieval or Renaissance paintings of St. Paul making a tent, but there should be.

Why do I note that?

Well, for this reason.  You don't think much about St. Paul being a tent maker as his occupation didn't define him.  His sainthood did.  

But a lot of us moderns sure have made our occupations define us.  And women are very much doing so now.

This takes me back to the item I linked in above.

In this case, unlike my uncle, he was much younger.  My age, in fact.  I hadn't seen him for many years, and before his troubles really set in.  He hadn't been able to adjust to them well.  The most common comment from people, none of whom were surprised, was that his torment was over.

I don't have any big plans, like one of my friends, for retirement.  I hope to be healthy, and just become more of an agrarian-killetarian than I presently am.  Funny thing is that recently I've been running into people who claim "you're looking really good". Somebody asked me the other day, indeed at the funeral gathering, "you're working out", the question in the form of a statement.  Not really.

Indeed, I've gained some weight I seemingly just can't lose, which I think is the byproduct of my thyroid medicine, which has made me hungry, and I know that I'm not in the physical condition I was before my recent health troubles commenced.  People close to me just won't accept that, which brings me to the other side of the retirement coin noted above.  Some lawyers I know are already planning for me to work into my 70s, as that's the thing to do, apparently. Long-suffering spouse, for her part, won't say something like that, but from an ag family, she doesn't really accept the concept of retirement anyhow.  Having said that, I wouldn't plan on my retiring from the ag operation either.

It finally occured to me, however, what's different about agricultural jobs as opposed to others, at least if you are an owner of the enterprise or part of it.  The occupation itself is existentially human.  It is, if you will, an Existential Occupation, or at least it is right now. The mindless gerbil like advance of "progress" may ruin that and reduce it to just another occupation.

Existential Occupations are ones that run with our DNA as a species.  Being a farmer/herdsman is almost as deep in us as being a hunter or fisherman, and it stems from the same root in our being.  It's that reason, really, that people who no longer have to go to the field and stream for protein, still do, and it's the reason that people who can buy frozen Brussels sprouts at Riddleys' still grown them on their lots.  And its the reason that people who have never been around livestock will feel, after they get a small lot, that they need a cow, a goat, or chickens.  It's in us.  That's why people don't retire from real agriculture.

It's not the only occupation of that type, we might note.  Clerics are in that category.  Storytellers and Historians are as well.  We've worshiped the Devine since our onset as a species, and we've told stories and kept our history as story the entire time.  They're all existential in nature.  Those who build certain things probably fit into that category as well, as we've always done that.  The fact that people tinker with machinery as a hobby would suggest that it's like that as well.

Indeed, if it's an occupation. . . and also a hobby, that's a good clue that its an Existential Occupation.

If I were to retire from my career, which I can't right now, I wouldn't be one of those people who spend their time traveling to Rome or Paris or wherever.  I have very low interest in doing that.  I'd spend my time writing, fishing, hunting, gardening (and livestock tending).  That probably sounds pretty dull to most people.  I could imagine myself checking our Iceland or Ireland, or fjords in Norway, but I likely never will.

That's more than I really need for my point here, but it ties in, this way.

Most careers are just jobs. They're an industrial way of separating you from your homes to make money for somebody else, in exchange for which you make some money too.  This was done to men first, and then with the "women's liberation" movement of the 1960s, women drank the KookAide and have been wondering when the good feels will arrive.

They won't.

Most jobs have no greater existential meaning than that.  If you define yourself by them, you are defining yourself as a fiction.

Which is why I worry about the lawyers who collapse into the cartoonish litigation personality.  It makes you a cartoon, and not a very interesting one.

It's also why lawyers who become deep dive into the Whaling For Justice personality, or something like it, sort of boil off the people they were and become somebody nobody is interested in.

And I also think that's why old lawyers have a hard time retiring.  After selling your life away, is this it?  It must be. This must be it.  I must love this as otherwise. . . .

I will note, and strongly, that I'm not advocating here for something that seems to be a current rage.  Don't get any post high school education and hope for the best.

Indeed, the advocates of that, don't mean that.  They mean don't forget to look at occupations where you work with your hands.

Now listen to me, all of you. You are all condemned men. We keep you alive to serve this ship. So row well, and live.

Quintus Arrius, Ben Hur.

The truth of the matter is that we sell our lives for a living, but we shouldn't sell our souls.  A lot of career propaganda emphasis the nifty life you are supposed to have, but not the risk of losing your soul, and here I mean in both senses.  Being able to sell the minutes of your life away for a decent return means that you need to have skills of some sort that are valuable.  People should try to acquire those if for nothing else their own protection.

Women, I'd note, are particularly vulnerable here.  A woman with a professional degree, such as law, is armed against loss of employer.  A woman who doesn't have some sort of valuable skill is at the mercy of her employer.  They're the ones who lose their jobs readily, and who are subject to all sorts of risks.  

The trick, I guess, is to get those skills and remember that we shouldn't lose who we are.

One group of people who tend to make that career choice are people who work for the government. They're often grossly underpaid, but they also tend to have weighted the options and elected towards "quality of life".  Lawyers who work for the AG's office, or biologists who work for state and Federal agencies provide such examples.  

Interestingly, people on the outside in the same fields tend to hold these people in contempt.  I guess people working 80 hours a week to make a go of it are naturally resentful towards those who do not.  But those people are often very dedicated to their professions and even more purist than those who sell their labor in the private market.  A dear cousin of mine who recently died was one such example.  She was a research biologist at a university.  

We're about to head into a Federal administration here that seems to contain a contempt to government employees.  Indeed one recent campaign featured somebody who wants to limit the amount of time you can work for the Federal government.  The same campaign repeatedly noted the candidates rural roots.

The rural roots are real, but what an irony.  Descending from homesteaders means that you descent from the biggest American welfare program ever, one that used the U.S. Army to violently expel land occupants due to their race, to hand it out to European Americans.  Don't mistake my point, I love agriculture and regard it as an existential occupation, and if I'd been alive when you could have homesteaded, I would have.  But people who loved the land so much they fought for it, and lost, had the moral high ground on that, and those who came in behind them benefitted from the Federal largess and murder.

If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?

Tuco, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Genesis tells us that since we sinned in the Garden, we've condemned ourselves to work.  But it's also obvious that work was always part of the plan.  It's interesting how well this comports to how evolution and societal development worked.  We were likely a very happy group as aboriginals, and we know now that depression and modern angst is unknown in hunter gatherer societies.  But we ate from the tree of knowledge and acquired it, 

Well, now we have to work.  Make the best of it.

Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror: Collapsed

Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror: Collapsed: 

Blog Mirror: Collapsed

Well worth reading:

Collapsed

You can see my reply there as well, which I've set out again here:

"Last year it would have not been a problem but this year I'm not in great shape due to family issues"

Me too, except it's my own health, starting with a surgery in October 2022, and another in August. Haven't really recovered, although I should have.

Maybe you never really do.

Anyhow, was walking out of the high country at a pretty good clip as a rainstorm came rolling in. Lost my footing on a rock, fell, rolled over, and cut myself pretty bad. Just me and the dog. No cell reception, and I've given up carrying my gmrs radio as there's nobody to call if I'm hunting alone.

Rolled over, wasn't damaged and hiked out bleeding. It hasn't been a great year.

Glad you were okay.

I don't mean to be hijacking somebody else's blog, but since October 2022 I haven't been myself.  I wrote previously on my surgery followed by a second surgery.  Since the first surgery, my digestive track hasn't recovered, and it's clear that it's not going to.  I'm sick every morning.  Not some mornings, every morning, save, oddly enough, for a few days I spent at trial where I couldn't afford to be.*  Most days I'm better off not eating any breakfast anymore, as it's just going to make me sick.  I was already developing an intolerance to milk, but now it's through the roof.  I can't even eat cereal with a little milk.  The stuff I'm used to eating in the morning, which was always a pretty light meal, is a no-go completely now.

And the second surgery resulted in a medication that I'm pretty sure isn't adjusted right, right now.  Everyone has told me how thyroid medication is supposed to make you feel great and give you energy. Well, that isn't working for me.  Researching it, there are a tiny minority of people who actually never feel good following a thyroid surgery and for whom the medications don't work to address that.  Given that almost no medication ever works well for me, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was me.  Hindsight is 20/20, but I really wish I'd foregone that surgery now and have borne the risk of cancer instead.  At age 60, and from a short-lived group, the risk probably was worth it.**

Worst of all, frankly, being sick all the time impacts your attitude in ways you can't really appreciate until it's obvious.  I've been there recently. Short-tempered and not having a good long term outlook.  At work the other day I blew up on two colleagues who have been running a really irritating religious debate for years, in the hallway, for what they conceive to be the entertainment of the unwilling listeners.  Our poor Mexican runner has to listen to this constantly, and I finally had enough and just exploded on them.  The point isn't that their juvenile behavior was okay, but that my reaction was so stout.***I shouldn't have done that, and that's just a minor example.

I usually look longingly forward to hunting season, but this year I've just not been too motivated after a certain point. Being tired has a lot to do with that.   And when you are like that, you are a pain to those around you, at least to some extent.  Some can see and appreciate that, others not so much.  It's hard to appreciate it yourself until something forces you to.  I looked forward to all summer to the season, and enjoyed deer hunting, but usually by now I've done a pile of duck hunting.  I've gone this year. . .twice. Every Saturday, the dog looks at me with confusion.  The funny thing is that all week long I still look forward to getting out, but when the weekend comes, I go down to work like old lawyers do, and when Sunday comes, well I haven't gone to Mass the night prior, so I get a late start doing whatever I'm going to do.

As noted above, not only am I tired, but I'm not in shape the way I usually am.  I've fallen so rarely out in the sticks that as a short person, I'm one of those people who were sort of goat like, climbing in terrain where hunters and fishermen wouldn't normally go and not worrying about it even though it was patently dangerous.  As a National Guardsmen, I recall once somebody remarking how me and another NCO were mysteriously able to negotiate difficult terrain at night, silently.  We were both avid hunters.  To take a fall, and a pretty bad one, on terrain that I'd been over a million times was a shock.

I was actually quite lucky at the time.  I was all alone, taking a path that I normally would not have, although as noted I've been on it many times before. There was a thunderstorm coming in.  I was carrying a loaded shotgun.  I fell, and, recalling the plf ***I learned so many years ago, rolled out of it, but not before I'd scrapped myself up pretty badly.  I wasn't sure at first if I'd broken anything.  I had my cell phone, as noted, but no reception, so I couldn't have called for help if I wanted to.  I usually carry a handheld GMRS radio, but I've quit recently as if I'm alone, who am I going to radio to?

Hors de combat, after it started to heal.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

I can recall my father getting like this when he was almost the exact same age I am now.  He died two years later.  He seemed pretty old at the time, so I wasn't hugely surprised.  I guess it's like the Hendrix song, "You may wake up in the morning, just to find that you are dead".

Of course, he was gravely ill for months prior to that.  In retrospect, however, it all started for him with a colonoscopy, the same way that this has started for me.  I recall him remarking as he was in the hospital on how all of his mother's ailments were now visiting him.  She died, if I recall correctly, at 65.

In my mind, I always imagined that at some point after I had reached retirement age, which I have not yet, I'd retire to a life of full time outdoorsman.  Not too many people do that.  There may be a reason for that. Some of us are luckier as we age than others.

Oh well, nature has a way of waking you up and reminding you that some things need to be done.  Getting sick? Quite doing what you are doing, refocus, and soldier on.  Get a grip, reform, reform, and keep on keeping on, but mindful of errors and omissions.

Footnotes

*I've long noticed for some reason a person's system will suppress symptoms of almost any illness when you absolutely have to keep on, keeping on. Usually things come back with a vengeance, or at least fatigue, when the crisis has passed.

**This is not intended to be advice for anyone else, I'd note.

***Re the argument, the entire facility had grown extremely tired of it and the shutting them up was welcomed, save by one of the arguers, who may be permanently mad at me.  Showing my presently poor mental outlook, I don't care.  I'm tired of hearing minority religions insulted when some of the employees belong to them, and I'm tired of having my own faith routinely insulted, which I've endured now for decades.  And while I'm a serious if imperfect orthodox Catholic, I'm also tired of one of these individuals, who isn't that good at arguing, turning to religious topics no matter what is being discussed, to include my assistant simply taking her shoes off in her office the other day, which would not normally lead to a Biblical discussion, but of course did.

I've also had it with somebody thinking that mocking the Spanish language is funny in front of somebody who's an immigrant.

***Parachute Landing Fall.  I learned this, oddly enough, while I was a CAP cadet.