we communicate with difficulty at best, so, I feel the necessary of starting with an operational definition for “work.” to me, operational definitions represent one of the best ways to help us communicate because we agree to a certain definition of a word for the duration of the discussion we want to have. they allow us to have more accurate and smoother communication. The directive itself seems to subtly imply that “work” should line up a bit more with what we do for a living – to make money and pay the bills-than with unpaid labor done for any purpose towards any end – as in mowing the lawn, building a shed, pulling weeds in the garden, creating a painting etc.- and yet incorporate those two ideas somewhat. i think my definition of work will need to sound more like the latter: any activity in which we expend energy towards a given goal.
my definition of work in this sense certainly does not include the idea that work must feel bad and cause suffering, even if minor. the work itself does not cause bad feelings or emotional suffering necessarily. those feelings seem to come from the intention and attitude with which it gets done – the “why” of the work and whether or not we planned to do it. most people would probably not enjoy having suddenly to change a flat tire while driving to a vacation spot. why? because it came unexpectedly and as an interruption. many forms of work cause us pain and suffering and effort (e.g., hiking, playing basketball, crocheting a large blanket, cooking an elaborate meal, or even this very directive) but we truly enjoy and even lose ourselves in them. that type of work more properly goes by “leisure.” or, at least, some leisure amounts to work or vice versa… defining words like means doing some work, too. no, the suffering and struggle we might perceive and even insert into our use of the word “work” comes from our attitudes about why and when and maybe even how we have to do that work. having control and choice over the situation seems to sit near the center of this concept, too. unexpected work can cause lots of suffering.
like most people, i do a variety of work at home and at work (ha). at my job, i do most of my work on a computer and much of it online. i also have physical items, inventories, and spaces to manage as well as several people. i talk a lot, write a lot, enter data, occasionally move some heavy things, keep things organized, teach in person, remotely, and create videos, etc. i also think that getting to and from work comprises not an insignificant piece of the work day: getting up on time, eating something, dressing, traveling, parking, and walking the rest of the way. going home involves less stress – i suppose that “stress” makes up much of “work,” too- because you just have to finish up for the day then walk, unpark, travel home, and redress (i think most of us change clothes after work). some days at my job involve more stress than others, as happens in life for everyone, and so feel like i do more work on those days when, in fact, i might actually do less productive work. emotions will often dilate time and stretch memory to the breaking point making it seem like you did a LOT MORE WORK at work.
at home, i also work both online and in brick-and-mortar reality. the online work more accurately falls under the aforementioned “leisure” subcategory and amounts to games on my phone, looking up plants and birds and gardening solutions and recipes and so forth to aid me in whatever i have chosen to do. i bounce in and out
of Facebook and a few other social media services regularly to find out if any of my friends have anything to say to me or share with me, interesting or not. my wife and i also enjoy a fair bit of streaming tv and movies which does not truly represent the kind of “online” experience i think this directive intends but which does use streaming services accessible via the internet… which also listens and watches us watch and listen. so it can play ads curated for our proclivities on all our devices. so, watching streaming services for entertainment does seem to fall within the realm of online activity. at least on the periphery of it.
the idea that our mobile devices and social media overrides much of our lives and even devolves into the level of addiction (another tricky word that should probably have an operational definition if it would not disrupt the dialogue here) has attained salience within the world as a fact – not only do we see it all around us but the social scientists have documented it empirically. i think i manage my online presence with adequate restraint. my phone never strays too far from me but i do not HAVE to have it with at all times and walk away from it at need without regrets. i recall my childhood where such devices only appeared in scifi without much sense that they might actually manifest within my lifetime. i would scour our encyclopedia at home and whatever books i could at the library for topics i cared about, often feeling the frustration of not knowing who sang a certain song stuck in my head or having to wait 3 WHOLE YEARS for the next movie in a series without the ability to watch the first installments on repeat until then, too. so, having devices like this with vast amounts of knowledge at the tap of my fingers still fills me with hope, confidence, and satisfaction. even so, the pressure of this vast ocean of information can feel like work just hovering there in the cloud without actually doing any work to tap into it. however, i do have the skills i developed in my pre-mobile device youth to exist unfettered from this on occasion and find a lot of soul-feeding value in that.