Writing and Work: I Pass On the Hammer

“Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”

- Henry David Throeau

A long weekend like this is for relaxing, right? So why do I look forward instead to the opportunity to do some writing? I mean, you’ve done writing before – it’s not easy. It’s hard work. And yet, compared to the other things I do during the week, spending time writing, while occasionally difficult, is rewarding. The truth is I feel guilty if I haven’t done any writing in a week. When I start to get edgy and fidgety and short-tempered, the first thing I do is check to see when I last wrote. It’s almost always seven days on the nose.

I’ve tried to explain this need to guidance and job counselors in the past when they’ve asked me what I wanted to do. “Write,” I tell them. “Yes, that’s something you can do on the side, but what would you like to do to make a living?” “Nothing,” is the only answer – and I’m sure anyone reading this who has some artistic impulse knows what I mean. Asking me what I would like to do besides writing is like asking me exactly to choose between being tortured by pincers, blades, surgical instruments, dental drill or hammer. Or, to put it less graphically, in exactly what way would I most like to waste my time until the next moment I’m free to do some writing?

I have had good jobs over the years and have been very fortunate for the most part in terms of having a friendly working environment as well as good people to work beside. I’ve had the kind of work situations most people would kill for: taking kids on guided tours of the Fortress of Louisbourg, teaching university-level courses, designing and writing courses on popular culture, and writing and hosting several educational television series. Not hard labour in any sense. Difficult work at times, but often intellectually challenging. And yet I would trade all those hours working for hours to sit and walk and think and then finally write.

It’s so bad sometimes that when an acquaintance, upon hearing how much work I’m doing at any given time says to me, “At least you’re keeping busy,” I want to strangle them, or at least scream, “Keeping busy is what people do to avoid their lives!” In fact, my resentment toward work has never really abated. When I discovered Bob Black’s great essay, “The Abolition of Work,” fifteen years ago I began to believe that the answer was to get rid of work. I mean, how could anybody want to work? It was such an unrewarding way to exist. The only hope was revolution and a dramatic paradigm shift.

But I’m not so blind that I haven’t noticed how some people actually seem to enjoy their jobs the way I enjoy writing. They often even feel fulfilled. So maybe the only revolution that’s needed is for people to understand that what writers and other artists feel doing their ‘unpaid work’ is exactly what they themselves feel doing their jobs. I mean, writing is work, just as much as carpentry is work. And anyone who’s read my poetry can tell you, I write like I was using a hammer, not a pen. If I could just make non-writers feel how empty and cheap I feel after a week of hard work at my job, they might empathize. If I could make them feel just how much writing (as opposed to what I do for a living), gives me a sense of actually contributing something useful to the world, they might encourage me to do more.

Who am I kidding? Given how seldom imagination, sitting still and long periods of staring out the window are valued in our society, it’ll never happen. Screw patience and empathy. A revolution is easier. Pass the hammer.