Quotations Weblog

Voltaire was a cool guy, but I think he got it a little wrong on this one. Don’t get me wrong. Work is a great thing. I love work. I do my work because I love it. None of that has anything to do with Voltaire’s quote.

The bone I have to pick with this quotation is the idea that work saves us from boredom, vice and need.

I’ve known many people who held down full time jobs. I worked with them. I partied with them. I commiserated with them. I haven’t found work to be the savior of those who are bored, vicious or needy.

Boredom

Firstly, the “bored at work” people are a highly sought after demographic. There are legions of people who are bored at work. I was bored at work. The Internet was my savior in that case, but when I was working at K-Mart, I was out of luck. Goofing off saved my mind from the numbing boredom that is being a checker at K-Mart. I have never found work to be my savior from boredom.

Vice

Work doesn’t stop people who are tempted by vice. I’ve heard the phrase, “I’ve got to go to work tomorrow, so I shouldn’t [fill in the vice here],” so many times that it was a cliche. When I partied, I knew people who were drunk every night despite their responsibilites at their employment the next morning. I’ve even know those who would commit vice at their place of employment, whether it be sloth, drunkeness, thievery or gluttony. No, work doesn’t save anyone from vice. The vicious keep right on sinning despite proper employment.

Need

“Working Poor” is a phrase that was relatively new to the scene when I was a teenager, but I’ve seen working poor who make more money than you know what to do with. They spend all of it on their expensive homes or cars, but they start out with enough money for me to live two lives with. Some people say that earning more means spending more. I don’t believe that has to be the case, but the act of having a job doesn’t prevent them from being needy.

Somehow, I think Voltaire had an idealized view of work. He surely never worked at K-Mart or as a second secretary at a firm that only needed one. He never met some of the characters that I have in my journies and he must have mastered the art of living within his means so well that he couldn’t conceive of “working poor”.

For whatever the reason, this is one quotation that doesn’t live up to the reputation of the person who spoke it.

It’s a hard balance to achieve. How do we keep our independence and still be willing to commit ourselves to others? When is saying yes harmful to ourselves? When is saying no harmful?

I’m a big NO person. I don’t like to commit to anything. I have a hard time committing to choir practice and volunteer work. I even have a hard time committing to dinner engagements. Where do I say yes? Where do I draw the line? The more I say no, the lonlier I get. Without groups like choir or Geek Dinners, I end up feeling isolated and alone in Salt Lake City. I blame the town I live in when in reality, the opportunities were there, I just said no to them.

I’m also a big YES person. I want to take care of your cat while you’re away on vacation. I want to help you freeze 10 gallons of water in my freezer. I want to host a dinner at my house if you’ll come. All of these activities however, eventually wear me down. Not only do I get physically tired. I get tired of people. Mike calls it “peopled-out” and it’s a valid condition. Without alone time, I end up feeling over-stimulated and anti-social. I blame the people, when in reality, it was my fault for saying yes to them.

Where is the line? It’s different for everyone and my line in the sand where I balance between loneliness and over-stimulation is probably different than yours. For me, I am always trying to live in that happy medium where I don’t feel lonely and I don’t feel peopled-out. It’s a hard balance to achieve, but it is possible to keep your independence AND commit yourself to others.

We unexpectedly got tickets for an advanced screening of World Trade Center:

“You want to go see that movie?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe you should take your sister.”

“But it’s free.”

“That’s not a really good reason to see a movie.”

“What did the guy who hates everything say about it.”

“They spend half the movie trapped under debris.”

“Oh… a claustrophobia movie…” I think about it for a minute, but I really don’t need to. “Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t want to see that… Maybe Stacey and Dan want the tickets.”

Sometimes the critics can tell us EXACTLY what we need to know.

With all that is happening in the world, it can be hard to remember that there is still so much to learn about it. Take bumble bees, for instance.

• CNN.com – Scientists: Bumblebees like it hot – Aug 3, 2006

The heat has been unpleasant this summer, but not for bumblebees. They seem to prefer to land on flowers that are warmer in temperature. It has nothing to do with the temperature of the nectar. They prefer to sit on warmer flower petals despite the temperature of the nectar.

Every day, we learn a little more about the natural world around us and it opens up to us like a fairy tale.

Sometimes when I log on to CNN.com, I feel overwhelmed with bad news. I find that I haven’t the stomach for it anymore. There is so much war and massacre every day that CNN makes me feel as if the entire planet is on fire.

Guess what? It’s not.

There are quiet, happy places all around us, even in the war-torn lands. CNN doesn’t care about those quiet and happy places. Quiet and happy doesn’t sell stocks and hemorrhoid cream. I want to see those stories far more than the blood shed. If CNN concentrated on all the good that happens in the world and ignored the bad, I have a feeling that wars and suffering would disappear from neglect.