Entry 19 – the Dignity of Work
While sitting in the VIIS library the other day, I began to reflect on work, and specifically the dignity of work. As a writer, preacher, counsellor, teacher, I take pride in what I do and strive to do it well. Certainly there is a sense of satisfaction at having written something well, or having taught a good class where I come away feeling that I have inspired minds and communicated the importance of ideas. But I began to wonder how many people take pride in their work, and see it as giving dignity, identity, and meaning; how many people see their work as contributing to a larger good, whatever the nature of the work. While there is more to life than work, surely there is also more to life than simply working to earn, and earning to enjoy.
Too often in North America we see work as a means to an end, not a goal in and of itself. The task, for many, is not to do the job and do it well, but to do what needs to be done to earn enough to live, and then to engage in living on the weekends and holidays. We create systems to get work done more efficiently, and use tools and machines to help us get our work done more quickly. It maximizes profit, but minimizes human effort and possibly human dignity in an indirect way.
I was thinking of this in the library, because while I sat there working, I saw a worker outside trimming the weeds that grow at the edge of the stone path. If he had used a gas powered edge trimmer, the job would have been done in five minutes. But here in India, tools are hand powered in many cases; his tool was a blade with a handle, and a hook at the end of the blade. Squatting down beside the path, he patiently and carefully used the tool to cut, dig and remove the weeds. One at a time. Without pause, he slowly and diligently moved his way down the path, squatting the entire time, patiently working away until the job was done. Then, with a broom made of dried palm stems – not a gas-powered blower – he carefully removed the evidence of what he had done. It was most of a morning’s work, and it was well done. I wonder if he had pride in what he had accomplished; I hope so. There was a quiet dignity in his patient, careful and deliberate work.
There is much work that is done by hand, with what in North America would be considered inefficient tools and methods, and yet there is a dignified simplicity in some of these tasks. I pass by tailors’s shops, open to the air. They are not shops so much as small storage areas for a variety of fabrics, and the tailor sits near the front (no wall, window or door) with his (and they are men) sewing machine. His bare feet work the treadle, and without electricity or complex electronic machinery, the needle moves and the clothing is created, to the measurements of the customer. And it is done simply, and well.
I see construction workers mixing cement and carrying it, one steel saucer at a time, to where another worker will apply it, and think how quickly this would be done with one truck and two workers. I encounter servers in restaurants who work long hours for little monetary reward, but who give the appearance of serving with joy and pleasure.
Perhaps I romanticize simplicity, when in fact it might be that I am overlooking other far more complex issues including low wages, uncertain working conditions, absence of benefits or pension schemes, and poor living conditions. But while quality of life can be measured in economic and material terms, these cannot and must not be the only indicators. Surely satisfaction of effort and meaningfulness of life and activity should be considered as well.
Perhaps in the west we have been too influenced by the account of the fall in Genesis, and see ourselves somehow as fallen people; the Genesis account, if misread without the larger context of other traditions of work, suggests that we can only produce by the sweat of our brow, and that this is punishment, consigning the idea of work to something equivalent to a living hell. Comin out of this view, too many deep down believe that we are redeemed not through work but through our ability to earn enough at work to have the freedom to fulfill our own desires, in our terms and on our own time. In India, there is no story of fall and redemption; instead, there is dharma. This is what is, the regular order of things, and the concept of dharma includes not only religious practice, but also duty, honour and vocation; there is a divine order of things, and by right living, one contributes or participates in that divine order. Work is. And in work, one participates in the greater order of the universe. And in this, it seems, one can take pride, whether weeding the edge of the path, driving western students to historic sites, selling oranges, or whatever one does. It is an unconscious spirituality about the inherent dignity of work, rather than seeing it as a necessary evil as is the unconscious and unspoken perspective in the west.
Each morning at the Institute, the staff gathers briefly for sung prayer and a reading from the works of Swami Vivekananda, after whom the Institute is named. Included in that prayer are words entreating God to grant both teachers and students protection and nurture, that they would “work together with energy and vigour”. Perhaps that is the unbidden prayer of many in the Hindu world of dharma, and low wages, and in a changing economy that brings traditions into clash and conflict with modernity and globalization.
A recent CBC documentary series on India explored the clash of ages, the age of tradition and the age of modernity. This is very much in evidence here: the huge Infosys complex is nearby, with its trendy architecture and its computer-savvy employees arriving on the latest make of motorcycle; the security men at the entrance look like the security men I see everywhere – ordinary people in ordinary jobs, which they take seriously and in which they take great pride, but for which they are paid minimally, working long hours with no benefits.
And as I look up from my work in the library, I see the labourer, patiently and steadily doing his work in a thorough and careful way. And I am made more appreciative of his labours, and those of so many others, so that when I go out into the streets of Mysore I have a new appreciation of the long hours, the low wages, and yet the dedication that so many give as they produce, sell, serve, construct, drive, beautify, help, teach, counsel, guard, assist and do a thousand other tasks that help me to concentrate on mine. And take pride in it.
While sitting in the VIIS library the other day, I began to reflect on work, and specifically the dignity of work. As a writer, preacher, counsellor, teacher, I take pride in what I do and strive to do it well. Certainly there is a sense of satisfaction at having written something well, or having taught a good class where I come away feeling that I have inspired minds and communicated the importance of ideas. But I began to wonder how many people take pride in their work, and see it as giving dignity, identity, and meaning; how many people see their work as contributing to a larger good, whatever the nature of the work. While there is more to life than work, surely there is also more to life than simply working to earn, and earning to enjoy.
Too often in North America we see work as a means to an end, not a goal in and of itself. The task, for many, is not to do the job and do it well, but to do what needs to be done to earn enough to live, and then to engage in living on the weekends and holidays. We create systems to get work done more efficiently, and use tools and machines to help us get our work done more quickly. It maximizes profit, but minimizes human effort and possibly human dignity in an indirect way.
I was thinking of this in the library, because while I sat there working, I saw a worker outside trimming the weeds that grow at the edge of the stone path. If he had used a gas powered edge trimmer, the job would have been done in five minutes. But here in India, tools are hand powered in many cases; his tool was a blade with a handle, and a hook at the end of the blade. Squatting down beside the path, he patiently and carefully used the tool to cut, dig and remove the weeds. One at a time. Without pause, he slowly and diligently moved his way down the path, squatting the entire time, patiently working away until the job was done. Then, with a broom made of dried palm stems – not a gas-powered blower – he carefully removed the evidence of what he had done. It was most of a morning’s work, and it was well done. I wonder if he had pride in what he had accomplished; I hope so. There was a quiet dignity in his patient, careful and deliberate work.
There is much work that is done by hand, with what in North America would be considered inefficient tools and methods, and yet there is a dignified simplicity in some of these tasks. I pass by tailors’s shops, open to the air. They are not shops so much as small storage areas for a variety of fabrics, and the tailor sits near the front (no wall, window or door) with his (and they are men) sewing machine. His bare feet work the treadle, and without electricity or complex electronic machinery, the needle moves and the clothing is created, to the measurements of the customer. And it is done simply, and well.
I see construction workers mixing cement and carrying it, one steel saucer at a time, to where another worker will apply it, and think how quickly this would be done with one truck and two workers. I encounter servers in restaurants who work long hours for little monetary reward, but who give the appearance of serving with joy and pleasure.
Perhaps I romanticize simplicity, when in fact it might be that I am overlooking other far more complex issues including low wages, uncertain working conditions, absence of benefits or pension schemes, and poor living conditions. But while quality of life can be measured in economic and material terms, these cannot and must not be the only indicators. Surely satisfaction of effort and meaningfulness of life and activity should be considered as well.
Perhaps in the west we have been too influenced by the account of the fall in Genesis, and see ourselves somehow as fallen people; the Genesis account, if misread without the larger context of other traditions of work, suggests that we can only produce by the sweat of our brow, and that this is punishment, consigning the idea of work to something equivalent to a living hell. Comin out of this view, too many deep down believe that we are redeemed not through work but through our ability to earn enough at work to have the freedom to fulfill our own desires, in our terms and on our own time. In India, there is no story of fall and redemption; instead, there is dharma. This is what is, the regular order of things, and the concept of dharma includes not only religious practice, but also duty, honour and vocation; there is a divine order of things, and by right living, one contributes or participates in that divine order. Work is. And in work, one participates in the greater order of the universe. And in this, it seems, one can take pride, whether weeding the edge of the path, driving western students to historic sites, selling oranges, or whatever one does. It is an unconscious spirituality about the inherent dignity of work, rather than seeing it as a necessary evil as is the unconscious and unspoken perspective in the west.
Each morning at the Institute, the staff gathers briefly for sung prayer and a reading from the works of Swami Vivekananda, after whom the Institute is named. Included in that prayer are words entreating God to grant both teachers and students protection and nurture, that they would “work together with energy and vigour”. Perhaps that is the unbidden prayer of many in the Hindu world of dharma, and low wages, and in a changing economy that brings traditions into clash and conflict with modernity and globalization.
A recent CBC documentary series on India explored the clash of ages, the age of tradition and the age of modernity. This is very much in evidence here: the huge Infosys complex is nearby, with its trendy architecture and its computer-savvy employees arriving on the latest make of motorcycle; the security men at the entrance look like the security men I see everywhere – ordinary people in ordinary jobs, which they take seriously and in which they take great pride, but for which they are paid minimally, working long hours with no benefits.
And as I look up from my work in the library, I see the labourer, patiently and steadily doing his work in a thorough and careful way. And I am made more appreciative of his labours, and those of so many others, so that when I go out into the streets of Mysore I have a new appreciation of the long hours, the low wages, and yet the dedication that so many give as they produce, sell, serve, construct, drive, beautify, help, teach, counsel, guard, assist and do a thousand other tasks that help me to concentrate on mine. And take pride in it.
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