Showing posts with label Existential Occupations.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Existential Occupations.. Show all posts
Thursday, January 9, 2025
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
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:
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.
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.
Wednesday, May 8, 2024
A conversation with an old friend. The Good Death, and the Good Life and Existential Occupations.
A really old friend of mine and I were talking about it just last week.
I had to catch up with him as he was working on something for me. It was Friday, but I was fairly formally dressed and he noted it. The reason was that I had just come from my uncle's funeral earlier that day. He extended his sympathies, but I noted that my uncle had lived a long and good life. Not a life free of troubles, as no such thing existed, but a long life, that was well lived, and he'd remained sharp right up until the end. His health had declined in recent years, but only in very recent ones. It was the last few months that were rough.
My friend and I, who first knew each other as National Guardsmen back in the 80s, are co-religious. Neither of us was married when we first met, but both of us have, and have seen our kids grow up since then. And of course, we've seen our parents pass away, his before mine. He has siblings, which I do not, and one of his brothers died, only in his 50s. I noted that in the Middle Ages, people often prayed for good deaths, and he noted that a prayer group that he's in now does that every week.
Prayer for a Happy Death
O God, great and omnipotent judge of the living and the dead, we are to appear before you after this short life to render an account of our works. Give us the grace to prepare for our last hour by a devout and holy life, and protect us against a sudden and unprovided death. Let us remember our frailty and mortality, that we may always live in the ways of your commandments. Teach us to "watch and pray" (Lk 21:36), that when your summons comes for our departure from this world, we may go forth to meet you, experience a merciful judgment, and rejoice in everlasting happiness. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
I'm constantly amazed by people who work into old age, as I'd judge it, and keeping working. A dear friend of mine, now in his 70s, noted that just the other day. He doesn't have to, he just is. Likewise, I know a collection of lawyers who fit that description. The law is a hard job, surrounded by hard facts, hard people, and difficult scenarios
I think they just know nothing else, their real personalities, perhaps, burnt to the core eons ago.
In contrast, I'm also constantly amazed by those who have extensive plans for their retirements well before they can retire. Another friend of mine fits this category, but when I look at him, I can tell his physical condition is so poor it'd be amazing if he lives long enough to retire. It's one of those things where you don't know what to say. If you were to be blunt, you'd say that the dreams of early retirement are probably forlorn, but that his dreams of retiring at all may be foreclosed by a bad early death, if some correction isn't made soon, and those corrections are harder to make once you are past your 30s.
The call came to my wife on Saturday. I could tell from the tone what the topic was, without even being told. A relative of hers was on his way to the hospital by helicopter. Even though he was being sent in, in that fashion, I knew, but did not say it, that he'd not make it. I'm not even sure if he wanted to.
And so another death.
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.
What I can't imagine myself doing is imagining that age and decline don't occur, and that I should be in court in my 70s. I don't think that the lawyers who do that realize that younger lawyers don't admire that, and most of the lawyers I'm running into in court are younger than me now.
And indeed, frankly, it isn't admirable. People who work a hard non-existential job and keep at it into their advanced old age, or at least past their 7th decade, have just lost something they were when they were young, and much of that is themselves. They've lost who they were.
AN ACT OF FAITH IN ANTICIPATION OF THE HOUR OF DEATH
From the works of St. Pompilio M. Pirrotti
On my journey toward eternity, dear Lord,
I am surrounded by powerful enemies of my soul.
I live in fear and trembling,
especially at the thought of the hour of death,
on which my eternity will depend,
and of the fearful struggle that the devil will then have to wage against me,
knowing that little time is left for him to accomplish my eternal ruin.
I desire, therefore, O Lord,
to prepare myself for it from this hour,
by offering you now, in view of my last hour,
my profession of faith and love for you,
which is so effectual in repressing and rendering useless
all the crafty and wicked schemes of the enemy
and which I resolve to oppose to him at that moment of such grave consequence,
even though he should dare alone to attack with his deceits
the peace and tranquility of my spirit.
I N.N.,
in the presence of the Most Holy Trinity,
the blessed Virgin Mary,
my holy Guardian Angel
and the entire heavenly host,
affirm that I wish to live and die under the standard of the Holy Cross.
I firmly believe all that our Holy Mother,
the holy, catholic and apostolic Church,
believes and teaches.
It is my steadfast intention to die in this holy faith,
in which all the holy martyrs, confessors and virgins of Christ have died,
as well as all those who have saved their souls.
If the devil should tempt me to despair
because of the multitude and grievousness of my sins,
I affirm that from this day forth
I firmly hope in the infinite mercy of God,
which will not let itself be overcome by my sins,
and in the Precious Blood of Jesus
which has washed all my sins away.
If the devil should assail me with temptations to presumption
by reason of the small amount of good
which by the help of God
I may have been able to accomplish,
I confess from this day forth
that I deserve eternal separation from God
a thousand times by my sins
and I entrust myself entirely
to the infinite goodness of God,
through whose grace alone I am what I am.
Finally, if the evil spirit should suggest to me
that the pains inflicted upon me by our Lord
in that last hour of my life
are too heavy to bear,
I affirm now that all will be as nothing
in comparison with the punishments I have deserved throughout life.
In the bitterness of my soul
I call to remembrance all my years;
I see my iniquities, I confess them and detest them.
Ashamed and sorrowful I turn to you,
my God, my Creator and my Redeemer.
Forgive me, O Lord, by the multitude of your mercies;
forgive your servant whom you have redeemed by your Precious Blood.
My God, I turn to you, I call upon you, I trust in you;
to your infinite goodness
I commit the entire reckoning of my life.
I have sinned greatly, O Lord:
enter not into judgment with your servant,
who surrenders to you
and confesses his guilt.
Of myself I cannot make satisfaction to you for my countless sins:
I do not have the means to pay you for my infinite debt.
But your Son has shed his Blood for me,
and greater than all mine sins is your mercy.
O Jesus, be my Saviour!
At the hour of my fearful crossing to eternity
put to flight the enemy of my soul;
grant me grace to overcome every difficulty,
for you alone do mighty wonders.
Lord,
according to the multitude of your tender mercies
I shall enter into your dwelling place.
Trusting in your pity,
I commend my spirit into your hands!
May the Blessed Virgin Mary
and my Guardian Angel
accompany my soul into the heavenly country. Amen.
We should all hope and indeed pray for a happy death. And perhaps we should pray for a happy life, which is one worthwhile. That doesn't, quite frankly, include the "I'm going to work here at my desk until I die". That's surrendering to fear or meaningless, in most cases.
Again, there are exceptions. People with Existential Occupations, people who own their own special business, and the like. The list can't really be set out in full.
That doesn't include pouring through the latest edition of the IRS code for deductions, or reading the Restatement (Second) of Torts, or engineering an oilfield implement.
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