Open Writing

“You’ve never worked,’’ a friend told me some 20 years ago. “You say you enjoy what you do. That’s not work.’’

The friend was then toiling in a factory, one of 1,500 folk engaged in the business of making tractors.

He had laboured at dozens of different jobs, all of them involving sweat and grind and physical effort.

And I was a white-collar guy. A journalist.

While Tony was perspiring in an engine room, doing his best to ignore the overbearing sound of three score diesel units being test run, I was chatting to politicians, pop stars, sportsmen…

Of course, when Tony dismissed me as a non-worker I was resentful. I thought I worked jolly hard. From the age of 20, when I started working for newspapers, I had put in long hours - and never been paid so much as a penny for working overtime.

As a child I’d been thoroughly immersed in Protestant ethics. I was brought up to believe that Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do.

“Make sure you finish your homework,’’ was father’s order, when I was a grammar school boy, emitting yawns as the hands of the clock neared nine pm.

“Them shoes could do with a good polishing,’’ said mother. “Can’t have you going out looking like a scruff.’’

So the homework was done, the shoes were polished…and I acquired the habit of keeping busy.

That habit is now so deeply imprinted in me that I feel unhappy when doing nothing. My idea of Hell is to slump for ever and ever in a deckchair on a sunlit beach.

If I have a spare minute, I read, or go for a walk. Retirement has brought an increased share of spare minutes, so I walk and read every day.

I do voluntary work for four organisations. And I daily edit Open Writing.

Hey, I’m not saying “What a good boy am I.’’ I’m merely emphasising that I don’t know how to sit still, dozing or staring into space.

Never learnt how to do it - and now I probably never will.

“It’s true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take a chance?’’ said US President Ronald Reagan.

I chuckled when I read that - then got back to work.

Or got back to “pretending’’ to work, as my friend Tony would have it.

Of course, he has a point. Most folk throughout the world work because they have to. They need to earn the dosh to buy a daily crust of bread, and keep a roof over their head.

Lucky the woman or man able to earn a living by working at what they would choose to do as a hobby.

Folk in Europe and America do, for the most part, work long hours, and some suffer enormously from stress-related illnesses because of doing so.

There’s a groundswell of opinion advocating more leisure hours and fewer working hours.

Here’s a quote from something I read recently on the Net.

“Being a highly virtuous child I acquired a conscience which has kept me working hard down to the present moment. But although my conscience has controlled my actions, my opinions have undergone a revolution.

“I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what has always been preached.’’

Hm! So who’s going to bake the bread, brew the beer, man the hospitals, maintain the roads, make the cars, clothes, fridges, TV sets, wrist-watches….

But enough of this. I must get back to wor…….

Oh, all right Tony. I must get busy with my hobby.