BitterSweetLife

Probing the Problem of Work

There’s something about creation—and all work involves creation, be it espresso, information systems, a team—that implies struggle, sweat, and probably pain. For a few brief years of childhood, we believe it can’t be that hard to write the “great American novel;” we live under the pleasurable illusion that lovely paintings can be made in under ten minutes (with our fingers, no less). But reality sets in, and soon naïve conceptions of effortless creation are a thing of the past. The waves of our aspirations begin crashing on the rocks of time and inability, and our visions, once crystal-clear, get lost in the oceanic haze.

Gradually, we find a new take on accomplishment’s cost. The picture is obscured with rush and clutter, but we gain the conviction that excellence has a price, and a high one at that. Still, something in us whispers that our pursuit of excellence is too hard, too tortured, too elusive. In moments of inspiration, our dreams materialize clear as day, near enough to touch. All that remains is to do. Then the vision is swallowed by the uproar of 10-hour workdays, job insecurity, frenzied commuting, media bombardment…and we either laugh at ourselves or quietly grow sad. Why?

It’s not that effort is fundamentally bad, but that so much of it is wasted. In our arts and pursuits we may achieve high accomplishment, occasionally, but mastery, never. Work, industrious effort (assuming we are diligent, assuming we even care) has become unavoidably bittersweet.

And therefore, joy in work is elusive. When do we ever pin it down? Is there anyone who loves every aspect of her job—all the time? Our outcomes seldom justify our initiatives. Even our masterpieces are inevitably imperfect. War and Peace wanders in places; the Mona Lisa has those cracks; sometimes Plato gets downright strange. And what about us mere mortals?

When I work at writing, I grapple with tools I can hardly use, much less master. I find my mind revolving silently, grasping at inexpressible straws of thought, walking a maze of syntax and jargon, wrestling with words—as with a shapeless mass—to overpower them, force them to coalesce, to express an idea, to take on voice and story-form, to speak… and then, half the time, they don’t. Something’s missing.

When we think of work, in our adult sense, our conceptions are somehow impaired. How so? We can no longer conceive of effortless creation. Or perhaps not effortless, but graceful, deliberate, pleasing. It has been too long, if ever, since we thought on God, spinning mass out of emptiness, creating ex nihilo, with imperative might that staggers heaven, hell and angels, the unmade universe hanging on his words…

God said, “LET THERE BE LIGHT...”

And on the seventh day He smiled, and said, “I like this; this is good.” It’s been too long since we've considered work's essential goodness.

I think of Christ creating, and my mind goes leaping off the reel, spinning in the wake of a fish too big to hook. I’m towed beyond the breakers, past the barrier reefs, into unfathomable, swaying deeps. I splash in deep sea—where the air is clear, and there walks a working man; storms are stilled at his word.

The day will come, I think, when creation’s consummation will match its inspiration. Pain will be a thing of the past; effort will not be wasted. What is visualized and what is made will coincide. That will be work redeemed.

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