I do not dream of labour.
You have likely heard this trope before.
Right after the phrase “find what you love to do, then do that for work and you’ll never work a day of your life”.
Or something like that.
This was clearly written by someone working some corporate job they hate, after having made every possible “correct” life choice, from extra curricular activities, colleges, and degrees – someone with a fantasy that “if only” they had been free to make their own life choices, driven by their passion and desires, that they would be living a magical self-satisfied and prosperous life.
As someone who actually has followed her dreams as her career, I am sorry to tell you the truth.
And that truth is, that I do not dream of labour.
Whatever work you do is and always will be work.
Have a hobby you love?
Does if relax you, fill your cup?
Why the hell would you ruin that by turning it into a hustle???
Like I said, I do not dream of labour.
Do I dream of luxuriating, surrounded by books, making ugly (but deeply satisfying) art?
Do I dream of moving through the world in wonder and awe, taking walks, naps, and pulling tarot cards?
Do I dream of writing, and drinking tea, and surfing when the tide is just right and there is no one else out?
Yes.
Yes I do dream of all of these things.
And I think it’s right to dream.
It’s right to do these things.
And also, it is a great fallacy (at best) and deep self-deception to think that we can trick ourselves out of “work”.
Work is part of this experience.
Like brushing our teeth, like washing the dishes, and nourishing ourselves.
This isn’t to say that we couldn’t nor shouldn’t derive pleasure in our work – no, that too is a great fallacy.
It’s just that we shouldn’t confuse the two.
Anyone who has taken a passion, pleasure, or hobby and turned it into work – by career, business, or job – knows this well.
We know that while there is pleasure in our work, it is still labour. Choice becomes something else – obligation.
Responsibility.
Our sustenance now relies on this work.
It is no longer leisure.
It is no longer watching a movie for the sheer joy of it – it becomes watching 2 hours of video that you need to finish editing before the deadline.
Responsibility. Sustenance. Our physical needs and survival intrinsically linked.
This can do strange things to a person – particularly a person who’s work is creative by nature.
Complex questions arise, morals and values are often tested, and often our deepest emotional wounding is found bubbling at the surface of our day to day existence. Living this way is not for the faint of heart.
I think for this reason, artists pursue art as a compulsion, rather than a career choice. Regardless of how they make ends meet (because ends must always be met in some way, shape or form here on earth), their creativity must move through them as necessary as blood must flow through our veins.
I suppose this is my own experience of the creative force.
I do not dream of labour.
I don’t say this because I truly believe that people shouldn’t pursue their dreams and creative projects (they should), but I see what appears to be a sort of cultural disease growing deeper, wider and more pervasive. The disease of this mythological fantasy that interweaves the drudgery of living in a hollow world of commerce and consumer culture with the life giving force of creativity and human passion. The disease that somehow sells the lie that you will feel less empty and void in this miserable world if you can co-opt your life force into the hollow machine.
This is completely crazy thinking.
And yet we buy it.
And we allow our creative juices to be pumped, pimped, and consumed by it.
Again, I’m not saying don’t open up a creative business.
What I’m saying is – open up shop with your eyes wide open, fully, to the whole of the experience.
The thing is that if we don’t fully see the whole concept, we miss the most important thing.
The wool is easily pulled over our eyes.
And we buy it.
We eat it up with glee.
Such a simple solution to the “problem”.
And yet this is how we avoid facing the root of the thing.
Why is it that we need to work?
Why is it that we need to be a willing cog in a machine that almost no one is interested (except a very very very select few) in participating in?
Why is it that our hobbies must be turned like tricks for a system that is inherently not created for real sustenance nor true nourishment?
Yes, we must participate, but we don’t have to be complicit.
We don’t have to collude with a system that does not support humanity.
But to do so, we need to keep our eyes open.
Our perspective broad.
So no, I do not dream of labour.
Though I dream of a world where humanity is valued, honoured, and cherished.
Where sages, elders, and ancestors are venerated, respected, and have a place.
Where creativity is allowed, and encouraged to thrive.
Where both critical thinking and community co-operation inform how we move, operate, and exist.
Where people like me, the writers, thinkers, ponderers, teachers, can be supported in our existence.
I do not dream of labour.
I dream of so so much more.