Like every man of sense and good feeling, I abominate work.
- Aldous Huxley
Oh, it is so good to have heroes!
I have always tried to follow in the footsteps of this extraordinary man. Sure, work is horrible, is a millstone around our necks. But I didn’t know that when at school. I had pictures – bloody ridiculous ones – of what my future job would entail. To cut a long story short, I went from job to job = from bad to worse = mild interest to sheer boredom = thoughts of crime and riches...
There had to be a way out of this morass of despair. And what did my hero do? He wrote!
Unfortunately, I didn’t have his advantages : better education, family influences, academic background. And, as St Paul once said : ‘If a man doesn’t work, he doesn’t eat!’
So I worked, had some humdrum job, one after the other, but wrote when at home : poems, short stories, novels, even branched out into music – all stuff to keep me sane. On reflection, over my years of working, I did approach breaking out of this monotonous mould, but no, it didn’t happen : a miss was as good as a mile. And those jobs – were they all bad? Worse than bad : soul-destroying. Yet once I came close to finding the ideal job. I was looking to find a job that didn’t feel like ‘work’ as one understands it, in the sense of all work and no play. Yes, I wanted to play and the nearest I ever got to that was one Xmas when I became a casual postman. Delivering letters : it didn’t feel like work. I was used to walking and walking wasn’t working. So, years later when trying to extricate myself from this awful work trap, I applied at the Post office to become a postman. I felt confident here, something I knew I’d enjoy, not a lot of money but the element of freedom, the fresh air, able to knock off early – all this was right up my street…
But not up the street of my prospective employers. Confronted by a panel of interviewers, they all told me : “Mr X, you are too intelligent for a job like this. It would bore you. And you wouldn’t like the heat in the sorting room, can get up to 90°F. You’d be far better off on the counter – we’ve plenty of jobs in that direction.”
That direction?
I’d been there. An abomination. Aldous was right, so right. Work?
Strictly for the birds!
- Aldous Huxley
Oh, it is so good to have heroes!
I have always tried to follow in the footsteps of this extraordinary man. Sure, work is horrible, is a millstone around our necks. But I didn’t know that when at school. I had pictures – bloody ridiculous ones – of what my future job would entail. To cut a long story short, I went from job to job = from bad to worse = mild interest to sheer boredom = thoughts of crime and riches...
There had to be a way out of this morass of despair. And what did my hero do? He wrote!
Unfortunately, I didn’t have his advantages : better education, family influences, academic background. And, as St Paul once said : ‘If a man doesn’t work, he doesn’t eat!’
So I worked, had some humdrum job, one after the other, but wrote when at home : poems, short stories, novels, even branched out into music – all stuff to keep me sane. On reflection, over my years of working, I did approach breaking out of this monotonous mould, but no, it didn’t happen : a miss was as good as a mile. And those jobs – were they all bad? Worse than bad : soul-destroying. Yet once I came close to finding the ideal job. I was looking to find a job that didn’t feel like ‘work’ as one understands it, in the sense of all work and no play. Yes, I wanted to play and the nearest I ever got to that was one Xmas when I became a casual postman. Delivering letters : it didn’t feel like work. I was used to walking and walking wasn’t working. So, years later when trying to extricate myself from this awful work trap, I applied at the Post office to become a postman. I felt confident here, something I knew I’d enjoy, not a lot of money but the element of freedom, the fresh air, able to knock off early – all this was right up my street…
But not up the street of my prospective employers. Confronted by a panel of interviewers, they all told me : “Mr X, you are too intelligent for a job like this. It would bore you. And you wouldn’t like the heat in the sorting room, can get up to 90°F. You’d be far better off on the counter – we’ve plenty of jobs in that direction.”
That direction?
I’d been there. An abomination. Aldous was right, so right. Work?
Strictly for the birds!
