Nitpicky, but I've been starting to be more intentional with labeling activities "work" vs. "labor" according to Lewis Hyde's definition from "The Gift." Both are activities, both take effort, but "work" is by definition transactional, with a very specific result in mind, and often done for money. "Labor" less bounded and more akin to play, but it's not necessarily pleasant--it could involve the labor of cleaning the house, navigating difficult relationships, etc.
So under this, I def would not work if I didn't have to, but there will always be labor in life. In fact, antiwork in my mind is about liberating as much time as possible for life's necessary labors.
Hmmm, I could see the need for distinction, though I prefer to use the words interchangeably. There will always be work (how you are using the word ‘labour’) but whether or not it feels transactional will shift.
Work is often just that, “work”. But not for everyone and certainly not for me. Yeah, I’d work even if I didn’t have to, although it doesn’t feel like play all the time. But definitely most of the time, which is why I keep doing what I do. Thanks for writing this, Elle!
Elle, this piece is wonderfully thought-provoking! I love how you weave Aesop’s fable with Bernard Suits’ philosophy to explore the idea of work as play. Quality.
I am retired and am fortunate to be able to do what I want to do. I divide my time with playing golf, writing, travel, and grandchildren. Those things make life fulfilling for me.
I love the concept that humans are “challenge creatures,” and that we crave the satisfaction of completion. It’s why video games and puzzles are such a popular mediums for hobbyists of all ages and types.
I understand why so many people see the fact that machines can do much of the work that people (and animals) used to do as a threat. But, especially given that so much of what our present society considers to be work is unnecessary or harmful to our wellbeing, it's great to see someone imagining the opportunities our technological advances allow us to live freer, more fulfilling lives. Thank you.
I read this from the perspective of a creative facing what may be an existential threat—AI—and deciding to carry on in spite of it.
As long as I may survive and provide for my family somehow, I can’t see myself stopping creative work just because a machine can do it cheaper, faster, and perhaps even better.
In fact, persisting in the presence of AI feels like its own particular type of challenge, one I relish as much as the builder would in making his own home in spite of technological advancements making building seemingly obsolete.
Yes! Because even in a world where all of the writing is AI: would you still want to write? And wouldn't you still want to read something written by a human?
Great essay! I love this concept and what a great reframe for the days I bemoan a good 40-50 hour per week Jon that also affords me time to do the writing I want to do, and the potential to have many long weekends and time off.
Alan Watts talked about how the universe is inherently playful, and how we really can see our whole lives as play to some extent. Thanks for the reminder!
People would still work if they didn't have to, but I doubt they *immediately* would if the option suddenly came available. First things first: Many would need a nice long vacation from the years/decades' worth of inescapable daily grind, and enough time to pay off a sleep debt 10, 20, 30+ years in the making. Next (and after establishing that full-time entertainment and hedonism do eventually wear out their welcome), many would be confronted with a major and necessary paradigm shift. E.g., they'd have to 1. re-set their sense of self-worth and usefulness to others outside of a (familiar) setting in which they're told what to do, 2. give themselves permission to experience guilt-free pleasure as serious fun rubs elbows with serious productivity for the first time, 3. make various other adjustments, and 4. ultimately come to a slightly different sense of their identity and place in the world. We're looking at very real growing pains here.
How many people have spent decades Working for the Man™ because "that's just the way it is," because that's what their parents did before them, and their parents before them? It's no small challenge to re-evaluate one's default/dysfunctional relationship to work, even if one gets to do that through some stroke of good fortune for the first time ever. Many people, generally through no fault of their own, see and treat work as Slavery Lite (sometimes accurately so, to be fair, given certain employers' imposition of horrendous working conditions and/or other harsh realities such as being saddled with a crushing debt load). I might further posit that this is true across socioeconomic classes due to cultural messaging and peer pressure. (A bigger paycheck = a bigger debt load + more pressure to consume in order to project status.)
Anyway, again, I think that most (healthy) people would still work even if they didn't have to... That said, we'd probably see some sort of mass, years-long existential crisis unfold before things came back into balance post-major reset of people’s idea of/relationship to work. Better circumstances (in this case, the removal of the average person’s financial obligation to work) can be notoriously difficult to accept if one’s been brought up to feel undeserving of them. This is true across the socioeconomic spectrum.
I'm not sure it would be a "years long" existential crisis, just because we do have some examples of what this could look like in retirees, children that come into a trust fund, and entrepreneurs who sell their business. Though there are no statistics on these populations, anecdotally it seems like each have about a one year period of leisure, followed by the beginning of some kind of play they want to devote themselves to. So maybe a year long?
Indeed, I'm sure it would play out as you describe it in many cases. However, I think you may not be accounting for the widespread issues Western adults experience in regards to play. For many, it’s really not just a simple question of time/resources.
There are legions of people whose relationship to play isn't only hindered by the practical obligation to work (or a history of existing in survival mode), but truly stifled by any number of other social/relational factors. Here, I speak from my experience as an art educator having given music lessons to any number of adult beginners. The stories I could tell you. Oh dear.
People with issues rooted in shame (there are many, this is common) are very likely to have issues around play. This is true regardless of socioeconomic status. An adult human's basic capacity to play turns on things like their sense of agency, their sense of permission (am I allowed to play?), their sense of trust and safety (internal and external), and more. All of these elements will color their relationship to exploration and risk, which are fundamental to play and playfulness. If any of these emotional competencies are compromised, there's a high likelihood that the person will have a hard time playing freely, and that their issues are going to take more than a year to work out—assuming they’re given time, space, emotional support, and the right kind of guidance.
Do you know a perfectionist? An alcoholic? A successful child of dysfunctional parents? Someone who's got all the new gadgets and has seen all the new releases on Netflix, but has no hobbies to speak of? It's not guaranteed, but very likely, to take these segments more than a year to come back around to a playful life. There's something in the way that runs much deeper than their paycheck, and might warrant 2, 3, 4 years of intentional readjustment (therapy, apprenticeship, etc.).
Anyway, I could go on... It's a hard conversation to have in vague blanket statements, to be sure, but my experience tells me that play is an incredibly fraught proposition for many adults, often for reasons having very little to do with their financial situation.
To be clear, finding one's way back to playfulness is part of recovering one's health after years spent suffering in sub-optimal conditions. It's always worth it, however long it takes. I'm only commenting here on how this process realistically plays out for a substantial subset of the population, based on what I've witnessed firsthand as a musician and music educator. Cheers :)
Every creative longs for this utopia. Writers want time to write, painters to paint, musicians to compose… we already know the ‘jobs’ we’d have if a day job to afford our needs were no longer required.
The big question is how do we as a society get to that point? Do we bring back the patron of the arts model of the Renaissance? How would that work in today’s society? Could it even work? And what of those that aren’t creative? How do we prevent a disconnect and resentment between the creative that can ‘play’ and the noncreative that must ‘work’?
Well we already have to a good extent, that we have the leisure time to write outside of work hours is definitely an improvement from years past! I definitely see no reason why that couldn't continue. I think the next frontier will be shorter workweeks. Or lighter workloads! I know several people who have "salary jobs" but only work 10-20 hours a week because they've managed to mostly automate things for themselves. Maybe that's the future?
How much do we really "have" to work now? I'm a software engineer - if I quit tomorrow no one would die or sicken, including myself. The utopian thought experiment you mention presupposes everyone's financial and survival needs taken care of. Take survival - our farm system is so much more efficient now than it was 100 years ago. We've gone from a society where nearly everyone farms to one where nearly no one does. So here's a different thought experiment: how much would an individual have to work if everyone's work was either farming, maintaining our water system, or building and maintaining housing? Let's add in caring jobs - child care, elder care, health care, teachers. Is that keeping everyone employed full-time? (I'd be curious what other functions people would lump into survival needs). I'm of the opinion that AI won't get us to a point where NO one has to work, so I prefer a collectivist vision that just gets us closer. Share the work, share the rewards, get money out of the equation. I find that when I daydream about escaping my white collar job it's not to a world where I don't have to work, it's to a world where my work is directed by me and more immediately useful to me.
Financial needs - that's such a huge magic wand to wave. I don't think there is a single version of "meeting financial needs" that would seem utopian to everyone. If you gave everyone enough money to vacation to Bali, they wouldn't even be able to go at once, they'd overrun the place.
This probably isn't the spirit with which one should engage with the thought experiment, but I just think we could get closer to a world of less BS work (busy work, work with no autonomy, work with no purpose) with social innovations, not technological ones that may never come to pass.
So, what I'd do with my time if I didn't have to work - probably much the same things I do now when I'm off work: water color, read, write, walk my dogs, plant a garden, hang out with friends. I often wish I had more time to do house projects.
I am a failed music performance major so know first-hand that passion, play, and work are usually intertwined. It's not play to do scales in a windowless practice room for two hours, but that time spent is necessary to get to the part where you play music with friends.
I tend to agree, we'll always have to work, but I love the kind of play you would do instead. And I love this --> "I find that when I daydream about escaping my white collar job it's not to a world where I don't have to work, it's to a world where my work is directed by me and more immediately useful to me."
If I won the lottery, I’d get up every morning and work at having fun giving it all away. The main thing I’d do is pay for everybody’s stuff in line behind me. And I’d tip 150%. And I’d walk around parking lots looking at car tires so I could leave vouchers for new ones at a local dealer. I’d look for a million little miracles I could connect to rather than a couple big donations that were a proxy for being kind.
Exactly! Even play feels like work if you are being forced to do it, either through fear of deprivation or through bribery. Look up Alfie Kohn's work on intrinsic vs extrinsically motivated play. ("Punished by Rewards" is one of his many good books)And a UBI Universal Basic Income would go a long ways towards giving everyone the freedom to choose. A permanent safety net that moderates the existential dread underlying the capitalistic game we all are compelled to play. For example, if you pay kids to play video games they will loose interest in the game itself and once the rewards stop being given, they no longer care to play the game for free!
Nitpicky, but I've been starting to be more intentional with labeling activities "work" vs. "labor" according to Lewis Hyde's definition from "The Gift." Both are activities, both take effort, but "work" is by definition transactional, with a very specific result in mind, and often done for money. "Labor" less bounded and more akin to play, but it's not necessarily pleasant--it could involve the labor of cleaning the house, navigating difficult relationships, etc.
So under this, I def would not work if I didn't have to, but there will always be labor in life. In fact, antiwork in my mind is about liberating as much time as possible for life's necessary labors.
Shameless plug to elaborate on this: https://www.bigquitenergy.com/p/labor-vs-work-vs-jobs
Hmmm, I could see the need for distinction, though I prefer to use the words interchangeably. There will always be work (how you are using the word ‘labour’) but whether or not it feels transactional will shift.
Love the chemtrails on this photo illustration... not.
Work is often just that, “work”. But not for everyone and certainly not for me. Yeah, I’d work even if I didn’t have to, although it doesn’t feel like play all the time. But definitely most of the time, which is why I keep doing what I do. Thanks for writing this, Elle!
Elle, this piece is wonderfully thought-provoking! I love how you weave Aesop’s fable with Bernard Suits’ philosophy to explore the idea of work as play. Quality.
Thank you! I really loved this book.
I am retired and am fortunate to be able to do what I want to do. I divide my time with playing golf, writing, travel, and grandchildren. Those things make life fulfilling for me.
I love the concept that humans are “challenge creatures,” and that we crave the satisfaction of completion. It’s why video games and puzzles are such a popular mediums for hobbyists of all ages and types.
Exactly!
Exactly, more like play and way more creative!
I understand why so many people see the fact that machines can do much of the work that people (and animals) used to do as a threat. But, especially given that so much of what our present society considers to be work is unnecessary or harmful to our wellbeing, it's great to see someone imagining the opportunities our technological advances allow us to live freer, more fulfilling lives. Thank you.
No, I wouldn’t.
I read this from the perspective of a creative facing what may be an existential threat—AI—and deciding to carry on in spite of it.
As long as I may survive and provide for my family somehow, I can’t see myself stopping creative work just because a machine can do it cheaper, faster, and perhaps even better.
In fact, persisting in the presence of AI feels like its own particular type of challenge, one I relish as much as the builder would in making his own home in spite of technological advancements making building seemingly obsolete.
In other words, I am the grasshopper.
Yes! Because even in a world where all of the writing is AI: would you still want to write? And wouldn't you still want to read something written by a human?
Yes I very much would!
Great essay! I love this concept and what a great reframe for the days I bemoan a good 40-50 hour per week Jon that also affords me time to do the writing I want to do, and the potential to have many long weekends and time off.
Alan Watts talked about how the universe is inherently playful, and how we really can see our whole lives as play to some extent. Thanks for the reminder!
It's easy to forget how good we have it compared to the past!
People would still work if they didn't have to, but I doubt they *immediately* would if the option suddenly came available. First things first: Many would need a nice long vacation from the years/decades' worth of inescapable daily grind, and enough time to pay off a sleep debt 10, 20, 30+ years in the making. Next (and after establishing that full-time entertainment and hedonism do eventually wear out their welcome), many would be confronted with a major and necessary paradigm shift. E.g., they'd have to 1. re-set their sense of self-worth and usefulness to others outside of a (familiar) setting in which they're told what to do, 2. give themselves permission to experience guilt-free pleasure as serious fun rubs elbows with serious productivity for the first time, 3. make various other adjustments, and 4. ultimately come to a slightly different sense of their identity and place in the world. We're looking at very real growing pains here.
How many people have spent decades Working for the Man™ because "that's just the way it is," because that's what their parents did before them, and their parents before them? It's no small challenge to re-evaluate one's default/dysfunctional relationship to work, even if one gets to do that through some stroke of good fortune for the first time ever. Many people, generally through no fault of their own, see and treat work as Slavery Lite (sometimes accurately so, to be fair, given certain employers' imposition of horrendous working conditions and/or other harsh realities such as being saddled with a crushing debt load). I might further posit that this is true across socioeconomic classes due to cultural messaging and peer pressure. (A bigger paycheck = a bigger debt load + more pressure to consume in order to project status.)
Anyway, again, I think that most (healthy) people would still work even if they didn't have to... That said, we'd probably see some sort of mass, years-long existential crisis unfold before things came back into balance post-major reset of people’s idea of/relationship to work. Better circumstances (in this case, the removal of the average person’s financial obligation to work) can be notoriously difficult to accept if one’s been brought up to feel undeserving of them. This is true across the socioeconomic spectrum.
I'm not sure it would be a "years long" existential crisis, just because we do have some examples of what this could look like in retirees, children that come into a trust fund, and entrepreneurs who sell their business. Though there are no statistics on these populations, anecdotally it seems like each have about a one year period of leisure, followed by the beginning of some kind of play they want to devote themselves to. So maybe a year long?
Indeed, I'm sure it would play out as you describe it in many cases. However, I think you may not be accounting for the widespread issues Western adults experience in regards to play. For many, it’s really not just a simple question of time/resources.
There are legions of people whose relationship to play isn't only hindered by the practical obligation to work (or a history of existing in survival mode), but truly stifled by any number of other social/relational factors. Here, I speak from my experience as an art educator having given music lessons to any number of adult beginners. The stories I could tell you. Oh dear.
People with issues rooted in shame (there are many, this is common) are very likely to have issues around play. This is true regardless of socioeconomic status. An adult human's basic capacity to play turns on things like their sense of agency, their sense of permission (am I allowed to play?), their sense of trust and safety (internal and external), and more. All of these elements will color their relationship to exploration and risk, which are fundamental to play and playfulness. If any of these emotional competencies are compromised, there's a high likelihood that the person will have a hard time playing freely, and that their issues are going to take more than a year to work out—assuming they’re given time, space, emotional support, and the right kind of guidance.
Do you know a perfectionist? An alcoholic? A successful child of dysfunctional parents? Someone who's got all the new gadgets and has seen all the new releases on Netflix, but has no hobbies to speak of? It's not guaranteed, but very likely, to take these segments more than a year to come back around to a playful life. There's something in the way that runs much deeper than their paycheck, and might warrant 2, 3, 4 years of intentional readjustment (therapy, apprenticeship, etc.).
Anyway, I could go on... It's a hard conversation to have in vague blanket statements, to be sure, but my experience tells me that play is an incredibly fraught proposition for many adults, often for reasons having very little to do with their financial situation.
To be clear, finding one's way back to playfulness is part of recovering one's health after years spent suffering in sub-optimal conditions. It's always worth it, however long it takes. I'm only commenting here on how this process realistically plays out for a substantial subset of the population, based on what I've witnessed firsthand as a musician and music educator. Cheers :)
Every creative longs for this utopia. Writers want time to write, painters to paint, musicians to compose… we already know the ‘jobs’ we’d have if a day job to afford our needs were no longer required.
The big question is how do we as a society get to that point? Do we bring back the patron of the arts model of the Renaissance? How would that work in today’s society? Could it even work? And what of those that aren’t creative? How do we prevent a disconnect and resentment between the creative that can ‘play’ and the noncreative that must ‘work’?
Well we already have to a good extent, that we have the leisure time to write outside of work hours is definitely an improvement from years past! I definitely see no reason why that couldn't continue. I think the next frontier will be shorter workweeks. Or lighter workloads! I know several people who have "salary jobs" but only work 10-20 hours a week because they've managed to mostly automate things for themselves. Maybe that's the future?
How much do we really "have" to work now? I'm a software engineer - if I quit tomorrow no one would die or sicken, including myself. The utopian thought experiment you mention presupposes everyone's financial and survival needs taken care of. Take survival - our farm system is so much more efficient now than it was 100 years ago. We've gone from a society where nearly everyone farms to one where nearly no one does. So here's a different thought experiment: how much would an individual have to work if everyone's work was either farming, maintaining our water system, or building and maintaining housing? Let's add in caring jobs - child care, elder care, health care, teachers. Is that keeping everyone employed full-time? (I'd be curious what other functions people would lump into survival needs). I'm of the opinion that AI won't get us to a point where NO one has to work, so I prefer a collectivist vision that just gets us closer. Share the work, share the rewards, get money out of the equation. I find that when I daydream about escaping my white collar job it's not to a world where I don't have to work, it's to a world where my work is directed by me and more immediately useful to me.
Financial needs - that's such a huge magic wand to wave. I don't think there is a single version of "meeting financial needs" that would seem utopian to everyone. If you gave everyone enough money to vacation to Bali, they wouldn't even be able to go at once, they'd overrun the place.
This probably isn't the spirit with which one should engage with the thought experiment, but I just think we could get closer to a world of less BS work (busy work, work with no autonomy, work with no purpose) with social innovations, not technological ones that may never come to pass.
So, what I'd do with my time if I didn't have to work - probably much the same things I do now when I'm off work: water color, read, write, walk my dogs, plant a garden, hang out with friends. I often wish I had more time to do house projects.
I am a failed music performance major so know first-hand that passion, play, and work are usually intertwined. It's not play to do scales in a windowless practice room for two hours, but that time spent is necessary to get to the part where you play music with friends.
I tend to agree, we'll always have to work, but I love the kind of play you would do instead. And I love this --> "I find that when I daydream about escaping my white collar job it's not to a world where I don't have to work, it's to a world where my work is directed by me and more immediately useful to me."
If I won the lottery, I’d get up every morning and work at having fun giving it all away. The main thing I’d do is pay for everybody’s stuff in line behind me. And I’d tip 150%. And I’d walk around parking lots looking at car tires so I could leave vouchers for new ones at a local dealer. I’d look for a million little miracles I could connect to rather than a couple big donations that were a proxy for being kind.
Exactly! Even play feels like work if you are being forced to do it, either through fear of deprivation or through bribery. Look up Alfie Kohn's work on intrinsic vs extrinsically motivated play. ("Punished by Rewards" is one of his many good books)And a UBI Universal Basic Income would go a long ways towards giving everyone the freedom to choose. A permanent safety net that moderates the existential dread underlying the capitalistic game we all are compelled to play. For example, if you pay kids to play video games they will loose interest in the game itself and once the rewards stop being given, they no longer care to play the game for free!
That's so fascinating!