Current Contemplation: Work

"I think really and truly an artist wants to keep finding an even more direct and interesting way of expressing himself, I think, and as long as he ever has that passion, and has an interest in life, I don't think that's ever diminished. I think the passion for working never really diminishes. Look at so many great artists who've worked all the way through to their deaths. And I suspect that I won't be stopping until I drop, probably. In some form or other I'll always be working, for sure." -David Bowie

Current Contemplation: What is "work"?

Got to hang out with Ike today, and he planned an excellent morning.  We went to a huge vintage antique store within walking distance of my apartment that I didn't even know existed.  While there, we also got a blackberry soda that tasted like a fizzy, liquefied otter pop (in the best way).  Then we went to a great Mexican restaurant that is also walking distance from my flat (that I also didn't know existed).  Finally, we came back to my apartment to hang out until we had to go to work.

The main thing I want to write about today is related to our final conversation before he left.  We were discussing a potential business plan of his, (which I don't want to go into detail about because I think it's a good idea and don't want to publicise it on the Internet for anyone to steal), but soon the conversation turned into a debate about the integrity of the plan.

It was a spirited disagreement, one that we both hope to continue next week, and it got me thinking about what caused it.  Finally, I came to the conclusion that perhaps our philosophy and approach to work is different.  Therefore, I want to contemplate today what IS "work"?

Quick side note: I do want to point out that I'm not planning on articulating Ike's point of view here (since it's his, and I don't know if I would do it justice).  Instead, I want this post to be about developing and communicating my one-sided perspective.

One of the essential components to our discussion was the book "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Timothy Ferriss.  I haven't read the book, but in our discussion, Ike passionately advocated it's philosophy.  After he left, I did a precursory search about it I found a review from Wired which criticised the fact that the book had, "No sense of work being anything more than a paycheck." [x]

Again, I can't say for myself whether or not this is a fair assessment of the content.  However, this got me thinking about my perspective on work.  I've always been a firm supporter of Bowie, who had a rather different outlook on work as that of a lifestyle choice.  A passion that would not be diminished until death (see: quote underneath the opening picture).

And when I first entered college, I had a pretty extreme perspective about "work" as an artist.  "Work" was something that split into two forms: Job and Career.

Under "Job" work, I considered any type of work that was a means to a necessary end.  A "necessary end" is one that a worker is not specifically passionate about, but is essential for a maintaining or bettering a certain lifestyle.  For instance, a necessary end could be working in customer service at a retail store because it "pays the bills" or going to an institute for higher education in order to "better oneself for a future career opportunity".  Most of the time, "job" work is something that is considered not enjoyable by the participant and something that gives them no pleasure.

Under "Career" work, I considered any type of work that was the end itself - a lifestyle.  Here, the worker is passionate about their work and enjoys the labour for the sake of itself.  Traditionally, things like "making films" as a filmmaker or "doing surgery" as a surgeon are put here.  Most of the time, the "career" is the thing that the "job" is used for until the "career" is obtained, and one "does what they love" to turn a profit.

In my last year of, college I've reassessed this viewpoint.  My internship (and thoughts of graduating looming on the horizon) made me come to have a different perspective about work.

There are many factors to a career other than "just doing the thing".  A few months ago, I had a conversation with my friend Nolan about this.  For instance, as a cinematographer in film school, your definition of "doing what you love" as a career would be that you get to shoot films all day, every day, and create Academy Award winning Art with a capital A.  You would also get paid serious money for your work and have access to the best gear available.

American culture is obsessed with romance, and the Career is no exception.  We have romanticised what the Dream Career would be, and the young film student's idea of cinematography fits it to a tee.  However realistically, careers don't inspire that level of joy and happiness every day.  Once you start your professional career, you realise that there are many other factors to the concept of "doing what you love" that aren't addressed in the film student's simplified perspective.

For instance, the commute time to your job, the dynamic between you and your co-workers, the amount of income you receive in proportion to the work you put in, the amount of vacation time you get, list goes on and on.  Not to mention the fact that very rarely will you have the passionate love affair with your craft like young people believe (much like a young person's perspective on marriage being the "happily ever after" of butterflies Disney movies make them believe).  More often than not, your day-to-day interaction with your career will be neutral.  Some days are great and some days are not.  Most days you go in, do your job, and leave.  You expect a good pay cheque to finance your day-to-day life along with your dreams.  That isn't to say you don't love what you do.  In fact, at the end of the day, you can confidently say you are "doing what you love".  Instead, it's a realisation that even a job working as a manager for a fancy rock band or being a director for a feature film is still, ultimately, a job.  Here, I look to an interview with Duncan Jones about growing up as Bowie's son:

There were a lot of unique things that I got to do, and not a lot of people get to experience things like that. And I treasure those memories. But often I’d sit around being bored backstage at a concert. 

You know, it was like any kid going to watch his dad at work, no matter what they do. 

We were just waiting for the concert to be over so we could go home. I could hear the noise up front but I’d spend most of my time hanging out with the roadies and playing with them. [x]

So this new perspective was like a fusion of my previous idea of what work in a career and job were like.  There was still unenjoyable work that could be filed under "job", but now the glamour of the "career" work was somewhat dimmed.  A career was still something to strive for, that you would also enjoy, but it wasn't your Life (with a capital "L").  Now, a career had a flavour of a job like "The 4-Hour Workweek" suggested.  Work in a career or a job was a pay cheque that sometimes coincided with doing what you're passionate about, but ultimately your free time could be better used for "doing what you loved".

But in the past few weeks, and in particular today, I've reassessed both of these perspectives.  In Good Mythical Morning's (GMM) "How to Start a YouTube Career" video, Rhett and Link gave advice for how to start a successful YouTube channel.  They emphasised that the channel needed to start with You, and where your passions and talents intersect.  They then offered a lot of different comedic hypotheticals for a variety of passions and talents that did not intersect on the surface.  This got me thinking even more about my own passions and talents.  If I had to honestly assess myself and make two lists they would look something like this:

Passions: Harry Potter, reading lots of books, articles, and publications, David Bowie (general), listening to rock music from the 1950s-1980s, Britsh things, watching YouTube videos, discussing philosophy and theology, going to museums (all), eating good food, creating films, writing essays and poetry, graphic design, travelling and experiencing new cultures, above all: listening to what others are passionate about and offering them any sort of skill/advice/information I can to help them achieve their dream/vision

Talents: Researching and compiling data/information about a variety of things, good communication skills (both for relaying and understanding), mentoring and teaching others (a variety of topics from creating a film schedule to general life advice), organising projects/events/lives, analysing situations/people, creating and implementing efficient work flows/systems

Unfortunately, what I've realised in the past few days is that I can't think of a specific career that allows me to coincide my passions and talents together like how GMM recommends.  I may have the talent of teaching, but I no longer want to be a teacher.

So I went back to the drawing board (which in this case means considering Bowie's career and his approach to his work).  And I realised that I've been considering "work" in too narrow a scope - the definition being that related to doing any fruitful action for a job/career or for pleasure.

This made me consider that my definition of work is incorrect.  After all, when we talk about "God's works" (which may be the ultimate Good Works), we don't refer to God having a job or career like a person.  We usually talk about his role in creating and guiding humanity when we refer to His work.  But what does a human's good work look like? Surely it has something to do with a larger, grander picture as well? Therefore, I turned to James, the so-called "Works" book of the Bible due to its emphasis on living and working out one's faith.

James is one of my favourite books of the Bible, and has so many excellent themes I wouldn't try to attempt to dive into all of it here.  But the main idea I got from James is that Work is something that we as followers of Christ are called to do.  It's a Good that God has given us - which should be obvious, considering that even back in Genesis we were assigned as caretakers to His creation (Genesis 2:15: "The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it").  And as Christians, Work is related to Action.

In 1:19-26, James discusses how to be a "Doer of the Word".  He states:

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

Here, James recognises that receiving and hearing the Word with an attitude of meekness is essential to produce the righteousness of God.  However, hearing alone is not what James wants us to understand.  It is a prerequisite to "Doing" well.  And this description sets the stage for the expected action of "Doing" well that is further explained in his famous passage 2:14-26:

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 

But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Clearly, James has a larger image of "work" than what I have cultivated in the past few years.  Work is valuable and valued as it relates to the expression of my faith and God's Glory.  It is then by my works in faith that I can be righteous and justified before God.  And really, this seems to be the only work that is worthwhile.  Therefore, it is clear to me that the real question is what will the specific expression of my Faith through my works look like?

James offers a levelling perspective to all of my options.  All work can be used as an opportunity to express your Faith and further God's Kingdom.  But at the same time, God has given to us certain passions and talents for the individual work that we are most suited to.  1 Corinthians 12:4-11 states,

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.  To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.  For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.  All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

All work continues to be the expression of Faith and God's Glory like what James suggests, but now it takes on a unique manifestation.  Moreover, Romans concurs with this when it states,

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.  For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.  Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

This passage offers a better picture of "work" we can do than what our current society says (ie you get a degree in your field, work in said field, advance in the workforce until retirement, then die).  If you have the gift of "leadership", for instance, the Bible simply encourages you to lead "with zeal" instead of something specific like "become the President of the United States".  Perhaps this is because the concept of choosing one's career is a rather new thing in history, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's because God understands that as humans we can choose our paths in a way that is complimentary to His designs for us.  After all, many of the disciples willingly gave up their previous careers and lives to follow God.

Moreover, this passage seems to encourage us to embrace our Spirit-given gifts wholeheartedly within our chosen "work" or field.  Therefore, the job and career dichotomies as related to enjoyable/unenjoyable work and to the idea of a career being a lifestyle or just a pay cheque are false.  This is because their interpretation of work is incorrect.  It seems to me that there is a Biblical precedent to have talents and passions given to us and to have lots of different paths we could take to manifest them in our work for God's glory.

It's not wrong as an artist to do a task you don't enjoy in the short term order to achieve a larger goal, like if you pay the bills as a waiter while you focus on forwarding your acting career.  And it's true that even a cool job like being a full-time rock star is still a job, with a paycheque and a lot of hard work at the end of the day.  But it's also true that just because something is a "job" doesn't mean you can't be passionate about it and love it (in the larger, fuller Biblical sense).

I'm still working out how to balance these things - what it looks like to say unashamedly that I'm passionate about and love what I do as a career, while at the same time recognising that the career itself isn't my whole identity (which is always rooted in Christ).

It's something that, as an American, it's hard for me to separate my identity from my work as an artist (since we love to connect professional success with self-worth and identity) - not to mention that most artistic work is deeply personal.  However, perhaps these passages will help remind me that at the end of the day, my career is merely one manifestation of my good work - which is ultimately rooted in Faith and aims at furthering God's Glory.  And that type of work sounds like an good lifestyle to me.