Sweating over lonely labour...

[fajrdrako]

To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, and to be given a chance to create, are the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy. - Bette Davis, actress

Comments

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

For much of life (i.e. from the late 80s through into the new millenium), I ^have^ been able to enjoy that. The last few years haven't been very good to me that way. It gives an all new meaning to the word "hungry," doesn't it?

My *current* job hasn't been too bad, but given that I may be *again* jobless by May has not helped. I don't really want to be "hungry" again, thanks. :-(

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Being hungry isn't much fun.

Neither is a life without gravy.

As for security - on the general spectrum of life, all my choices have tended away from the secure, since my temperament is to prefer other options. I have no regrets about that, but sometimes the prospect of living forever without security is frightening.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I wanted security. I believed that if I was good and studied hard and got good degrees, I could get a permanent post either in a university or a museum...
But the social fabric here was shredded in the Thatcher years, and Blair and co. have turned Labour into Conservatives-lite... The professions have been casualised. A 2 or 3 year contract is now about as secure as it gets in many fields. Expertise is devalued in favour of marketing. It's all about marketing now: learning to "sell yourself" to employers, regardless of your skills. (I don't believe in myself as a product, so how can I do that?)
Sometimes I wish I had died 20 years ago, before I was thoroughly disillusioned with this dungheap of a society.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

wishing you heaps of gravy, coming with the meat and potatoes of your liking.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Thanks. As I mentioned in my own LJ, I saw a careers adviser on Monday, who said the problem was I wasn't "playing the game". I have to pretend not to be academically inclined, remove my real interests and achievements (such as my publications) from my CV, and bolster the more trivial things... It's a dumbed-down world, and only marketing and management-speak matter.

Luckily, I have my research to keep me sane. An 862-ish hunk is not a bad toy to play with...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I am not enchanted with a dumbed-down world. I want a smarted-up world.

But yes, at least we have some wonderful intellectual toys to play with.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

But yes, at least we have some wonderful intellectual toys to play with.

Very much so! (And I don't think he minds being played with at all...!) ;-D

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's the joy of intelligence and imagination put together.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Que tal se van d'amor gaban;
Nos n'avem la pess' e.l coutel.
("Some go about bragging about love;
We have the bread and knife [all we need] of it.")

Guilhem IX of Aquitaine

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

Let's hear it for intellectual toys!

In a similar light, I am working on a new computer programming language, which I mention in my latest post. The language may be artificial, but the utility is still pretty real. :-)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You know I approve of artificial languages. And in a very real sense, all language is artificial, in that it is created/invented by those who use it, though done so as a collective creation over which no individual has much control. Fascinating.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

Having seen the same sort of thing in both Canada *and* England, I would have to agree ... but I do not like it -- not even one little bit.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

No, I don't like it either.