what does work mean to me?

bananas-canteen37@icloud.com (icarus) — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Warning: this is very rough draft, it will be as imperfect as it can get. Quite frankly will not get updated or refined.

Since building this website, I have looked at the horizon and wondered what is over there. What do I make of myself? I began this blog wanting to document my ideas and build upon my manifesto. But its been a little over a year since i wrote on this website, its been over two years since i wrote my manifesto rough draft. Yet, it seems to me that I can’t help but dissect myself into oblivion.

What do I mean?

For example a brief synopsis of my ideology is to confront the uncomfortable and constantly explore new ideas. This may be the way I am not the way I’m choosing to be. I frequently spiral in the desire to free-myself-from-my-paradigms. But when observing some personality theories I find that i’m a typing, meaning that there is written description for my characteristics. Albeit generalizations but nonetheless accurate to me. This in some ways can be useful to find where my hubris is and work towards a wholistic self but i feel defeated in a way! Like a character’s awareness that his fate is already determined and his intervention is part of the pre-determined fate.

In this spiral of dissecting myself I began this blog as a way to write about [critical theory]. To elaborate on what I learn and reinforce it by teaching it someone else. Alongside this, I wanted to write like Colin Haley’s blog of magnificent adventures detailing my adventurous life. This is still in the works (even relishing on past accomplishments). But maybe thats not enough, maybe I could make a living off of writing and that the blog is the source of truth for me. Akin to the packable life who’s making a living off his blog hiking. In some ways i want to enjoy the way i make money but I can’t help but feel as though my productivity and hustle coulter is a reaction to my environment. That is, having to provide for my immigrant family and be able to provide them retirement and stability, to adhere to the a ~~american~~ dream that they believe and get wealthy.

While needing to make a living is a necessity regardless i’m wondering if turning my passions, ie writing into a job becomes more or less the thing I wanted to avoid. To work is to be enslaved to it, if my blog and subsequent ideas become my work maybe it’s going to lose its luster.

In praise of Idleness

Betrand Russle’s essay in Praise of Idleness argues that our modern society places far too much moral value on work and not enough on leisure.

His main points are:

Work is treated as a virtue when it shouldn’t be. He argues that the belief that hard work is inherently morally good largely comes from older social systems where elites benefited from convincing everyone else to labor.
People should work much less. He provocatively suggests that about four hours of work per day could be enough if work were distributed fairly and modern productivity were used properly.
Unemployment and overwork are two sides of the same problem. Instead of having some people work long hours while others have no jobs, society could divide necessary work among more people.
Technology should create leisure, not simply more production. As machines make workers more productive, Russell thinks the logical result should be fewer working hours. Instead, societies often keep producing more goods and maintaining long workweeks.
Leisure is valuable in itself. Free time allows people to pursue art, science, education, hobbies, relationships, and simple enjoyment rather than structuring life entirely around economic productivity. This is kind of the reason why i want to write for the sake of it. For the art of it rather than to produce economic value.
A culture obsessed with usefulness becomes intellectually and emotionally poorer. Russell thinks many of civilization’s greatest achievements came from people having enough leisure to think, experiment, create, and study things without an immediate economic purpose.
The ultimate goal of economic progress should be a better life, not endless labor. Productivity should free humans from unnecessary work rather than making increased production the permanent objective. Yet, we can see in the age of AI how that becomes blatantly obvious it’s not the goal. It doesn’t make the programmers have more time to themselves, rather that they should do more in the time they have because the tools are accelerating their work. The lies they sold us are that its to improve our lives but it only makes the capitalist more wealthy, squeezing more out of us.

The essay is therefore less about being literally lazy than about rejecting the idea that a person’s worth is measured by how constantly productive they are.

And in fighting my urge to constantly work out of the stress of falling behind I have momentarily taken the opposing view. One that reflects The Big Lebowski “The dude abides” basically means he rolls with whatever life throws at him and doesn’t let the chaos shake who he is.. Yet to many in the film he’s portrayed as a bum.

This then begs the question, to whom am I reflecting the desires of? Is it my parent’s desire, the desire of the other. The desire of my girlfriend? The desire of my peers and society who fall in line with (subconsiously) capitalist ideology? Or myself?

Can I in the face of rejecting memetic desire find peace? or in Nietzschean term’s

Can I, by overcoming the desires imposed upon me by the herd, carve out a peace that is truly my own?

I debated even writing this to a public space or to keep it within a journal. Is my blog a public journal or something more distant, more a-personal? For the time being, to build the habit of writing I must be whole-heartedly open and be able to write about myself. It may be full of scrutiny and contradictions but as I find myself I will have to keep pushing on.

In some ways i just want this to be simultaneously a medium in which i can learn an be able to explain to other’s (traditional second brain) and also be my a way for friends and family to get an insight into my mind. It’s a bit vulnerable in that sense.

(Paradigm: a worldview underlying the theories and methodology of a particular subject).

Meta on posthumous regret

what does work mean to me?

What do I mean?

In praise of Idleness