Thursday, April 2, 2009

Work/Play

20080917_chalktalkYou might think that my favorite thing in the world is food. Well no, you know that my favorite thing in the world is skating. But next to skating, my favorite thing in the world are taxonomies.

Honk if you love taxonomic schemes! Beep beep!

My friend Tommy and I worked out this work/play scheme last summer, we wrote it up on the chalkboard and everything.

(The other thing that I worked out with Tommy was a game on skates where the jammer skates in circles blindfolded, just so you know.)

Now if you're a grasshopper type, try not to think in terms of play as fun and work as not fun; and if you're an ant type, try not to think in terms of work as productive and play as unproductive. Play and work can both be fun, and can both be productive. Play can be unfun. Work can be unproductive, god knows. (I'm an ant-type, in case you hadn't figured that out.) So we're going to erase those meanings from these terms, but also we're going to acknowledge that we can still see the erasure cloud, so to speak, around them. That's fine, but we're going to focus on these definitions for the purpose of this exercise:

work is something that is done as a means to an end
play is something that is done as an end in itself

Just that, for now. And now we make a table:

  that is workthat is play
Work WORK something that is done as a means to an end that is a means to an end HOBBY something that is done as a means to an end that is an end in itself
Play PLAY something that is done as an end in itself that is a means to an end PASTIME something that is done as an end in itself that is an end in itself

I have decided that I'm going to have more to say about this, so a quick preview for now:

Work that is work = WORK = something that is done as a means to an end that is a means to an end = not even work, my job, fully falls into this category, if I think too hard about this, but yeah, doing my taxes, most definitely, stuff like that. But let's be real, working at the office still counts as work that is work.

Work that is play = HOBBY = something that is done as a means to an end that is an end in itself = for me, my incessant making of schedules, definitely a means to an end, but also I do it just to do it.

Play that is work = PLAY = something that is done as an end in itself that is a means to an end = for me, skating, which is good enough just as a "peace out" sort activity, but also happens to improve my fitness, and actually is a little second job.

Play that is play = PASTIME = something that is done as an end in itself that is an end in itself = this is your real "just for fun" category, for me, watching tv series mostly, that is when I am totally checked out.

Speaking of, I have to get back to it.

TO BE CONTINUED