Love what you do

Part of the modern-day angst which we are all alleged to suffer from these days lies in the apparent lack of division between the concepts of ‘work’ and ‘leisure’. It’s claimed that advances in technology such as the Blackberry and the net-enabled mobile phone make us virtual (in both senses) slaves of our employers (or of our employment, at least) wherever we go.

Now it’s true that my life does look like that, at least superficially. I am most often to be found in symbiosis with a laptop as I struggle with other people’s bad English and unclear thinking, in my capacities as teacher, proof-reader and translator. But in my case, I am simply doing what I am best at. Because of a combination of factors – principally a challenging father who didn’t allow lazy thought or speech to go uncriticised, plus a light sprinkling of what I’m sure is Asperger’s-syndrome fairydust – I have a natural inclination to and talent for spotting discrepancies of detail, inconsistencies of language, sometimes at great distances; a good proofer has to spot the same term which was used on page 2 and not again until page 220, and ensure it’s spelt & used in the same way. As an example, very bored people can check the spelling of the term ‘Kali Yuga’ on pages 145 (chapter 20) and 272 (chapter 45) of the first English edition of Umberto Eco’s ‘Foucault’s pendulum’.

This is the type of thing which I both notice and feel as almost a kind of affront, as a fundamental wrongness which my instinct simply finds impossible to let pass, much as a gardener views an insect or a weed. Normal people let such things pass, as being at worst a minor irritant if a genuine confusion of meanings is caused, and usually just a matter of no real importance. Not me, though; my righteous indignation at coming across such mistakes and manglings is matched only by the satisfaction I feel at rectifying them. I read somewhere that the autistic’s desire for routine and repetition stems from a desire to control at least one small part of the endless onrush of data from the vast, mad world outside her head. So perhaps my talent for languages and language on both the specific & general levels is ultimately just a form of some similar kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder. :)

Whatever, I can’t really deny that I get a particular satisfaction out of what I do, whether that be untangling the tortured syntax which Slavonic languages seem to specialise in (What’s wrong with relative clauses? Why do you hate them?), correcting an earnest but under-informed physics professor’s over-use of the present continuous tense, or later the same day seeing the light of recognition dawn in the eyes of a student to whom I’ve just explained the same grammatical point. In fact, I might say that over the years since graduation, I’ve been able (semi-consciously at the beginning, more deliberately in recent years as I’ve become more aware of my real nature and abilities) to narrow the gap between ‘that which I must do to earn & maintain income and social status’ and ‘that which I must do to satisfy my interests and desires (intellectual, even if not spiritual, cultural, physical, etc.)’. Now isn’t that just a long-winded way of saying that my work/leisure divide is close to being bridged?

So I sit by the window in a well-lit café, with the pleasant distractions of attractive waitresses, good European coffee or hot chocolate; losing myself in my work or not, as I choose; entering or leaving at 8am or 3pm as the whim & the sunlight take me, just so long as the work gets done by deadline. (I have the habit of setting deadlines for a day or two after I know I’m likely to finish the work; that gives me the advantage of being seen as a fast worker if I finish beforehand, and also allows me some leeway if something unexpected does happen.)

But there is a snake lurking in this little Eden. Despite all the advantages I’ve described in such loving detail above, a subtle but deep dissatisfaction remains, which keeps me in bed listening to BBC Radio 4 longer in the mornings than I should be, which occasionally makes me pretend to lose E-mails or their attachments, or spend too much time talking to faraway persons on messenger programs or Skype. Why should this be, if the work I do is so closely in tune with my own sensibilities, interests and obsessions? (At least if nothing else, this proves that I’m not really that autistic; if I was that far lost in the hermetic world of the ultra-male brain (as some have described the condition), then no food, news programme or sultry post-Communist siren could stop me from obsessively adding every missing hyphen in ‘long term’ from here till the next World Conference of International Mathematicians for Dullness & Tweed Jackets.) :)

No, the problem is this - it’s still work. No matter what intellectual satisfaction I get from it, I am still beholden to someone else, still following someone else’s orders as opposed to my own whims & caprices. And the psychic burden of knowing that this element of compulsion exists somehow takes away the pleasure of the work, even though the work itself should be intrinsically pleasant of itself for me. So what does that mean, when one has a deep-seated desire to avoid work and its responsibilities, even when that work is ideally suited to one’s skills, abilities and inclinations? Does it indicate that the concept of ‘work’ has such a negative effect on our attitudes that it can poison and degrade anything we do and call by that name? Is this the fundamental problem underlying our dissatisfaction with our lives? Would we enjoy what we do a lot more if we didn’t call it ‘work’ and think of it as work?

Or am I just a lazy git? :D