The Nature of Work

I’ve had a couple of days to recoup – that is, get over my whiny, I-hate-the-heat-and-I-hate-the-job-market way of thinking. What truly brought me back to life was the promise of this heat wave ending. I rejoice in the well of late 70s to early 80s heat. It makes me less likely to whine about things. I swear, the heat does something crazy to the mind—but all blame aside, I’ve given more thought as to whether or not the subject of work should’ve been brought up, and I decided that it should. Coincidentally, I read an article about the nature of work from The Atlantic magazine recently. It took me several days (that’s what happens when you have a kid), but I finally finished it this morning. And boy oh boy – it may be a long article, but it’s definitely worth reading. The author, Derek Thompson, explored the concept of work extensively, and given the nature of today’s ever-changing-fast-paced lifestyle and technological advancements, he made it a point to say that the value of work, psychologically speaking, is diminishing. To not give away the whole contents of the article, I’d like to note that this article is an eye-opener.

There’s a particular section about the artistic industry – the term “cultural workers” were coined, and it was stated that people who create things, mostly artwork – paintings, metalwork, photos, etc. do play an important role in the future of work. For a long time, teaching art & music in schools have been diminishing. In high school, my choir teacher was also the band director – a job common in today’s times as well. It is quite sad to see that as time goes by, pursuing artistic work has dwindled in favor of more science and technology-related subjects. It’s not to say that science and math isn’t important, because it is VERY important, for we can thank those engineers, scientists and mathematicians of today for the changes that have made our lives better.

From the New Yorker

Still, I wish that public schools would place more emphasis on letting kids pursue art, or rather create things. In Asian cultures where I grew up in, parents almost always want their children to become a doctor or a lawyer, professions that brings in a lot of monetary benefits and financial stability, so the kids tend to develop extrinsic motivation versus intrinsic motivation. Take, for example, the promise of working in a high rise development in a large metropolitan area with the salary to match – that is, extrinsic motivators. These kids are less likely to pursue photography, or sculpture or theater, because it is seen as career paths that doesn’t produce the best of incomes. Yes, that may be true, especially for a lot of “artists” out there, it can be YEARS (sometimes posthumously) before one can sell a piece of art for thousands or millions, or it can take a writer 7 years to get his book series on the market (for example:Jeff Kinney, creator of Diary of a Wimpy Kid), it is notable that these professions that offer a lot of extrinsic rewards often do not result in a lot of personal fulfillment.

Of course, it’s not to say that we should all quit our day jobs, or pack our bags and move to a place that would allow us to pursue our interests more. But some of us have a different calling than others. It took me a long time to realize that I was interested in taking pictures, rather than just admiring them; that when I look at a picture that I really like, I’d think to myself, “Wow I did that!” It feels good. In college, I started off by majoring in apparel design. Then with the insistence of my mother (who fits the mold of the typical Asian parent – wanting their kid to do something more financially stable), I changed it to business administration. And although I really enjoyed the subjects I studied in business school – since I knew it would be useful to know if I ever started my own business one day – I still wished that I had pursued art a little bit sooner. Perhaps then I wouldn’t have been so confused as to what to do after college, and it wouldn’t have taken me so long to figure out what I’d really like to do.

For me, I believe that it is much more rewarding to see something that you made by hand come into fruition as a tangible product right in front of your eyes than to look at a computer screen and see your company’s profits go up, for it may be awhile before you can reap in percentage of the profits. For a writer, this may mean holding a copy of a book she wrote; for a carpenter, this means seeing a piece of furniture displayed in a client’s home. The reward is there in front of your eyes—you can see it, you can touch it, and admire it. I doubt that you can really take a number from your computer screen or report binder and really digest in its significance tactfully.