There’s this idea that I see all the time: if I could not work, I wouldn’t.
No you would. You would work. You would do something. Imagine the situation.
You are home, you have family and friends around. No bills, no rent, no job. Everything is fine. Imagine that it’s possible, don’t care about the details. So, you’re enjoying life doing whatever you want, right?
Week 1: fantastic, you don’t even know how to act. Parties, entertainment binges, you name it.
Week 6: you’re doing less of those “happy” things and start realizing that overall life is pretty damn slow when you don’t have to do *anything*.
Month 7: you are bored to death. It’s always the same. And there are a lot of decades to come. You’re over this situation in less than a year.
Purpose. We all need purpose. We all derive pleasure from helping, building, doing something meaningful. You can’t not do anything. If you do in a society, you will find yourself at the edge and pushed out. No social groups like freeloaders. Not in the animal world, even less in the human world. You will have to do something in order to accept yourself and be accepted by others.
That is what is called work. It’s awesome and necessary.
I can see myself waking up early to go do some paint job for an older couple a few blocks away. I can see myself caring about them and doing an excellent job. I can see myself going back home to cook, take a lil nap or a long one if she’s with it. I can see myself go back to the couple’s house and finish it up in a few days. I can see myself smiling at them being excited to have a new, good for another decade, turquoise porch. I can see them “paying” me with food, some structural engineering lessons because he used to do that in the past or a rare funk LP from the 1980s that I would put on when I go back home to have a smoke during sunset, busting moves in my living room.
We are meant to do things. To share, to work. That will never go away. Rent, bills and stocks can go though.