What Do You Do?

One of the few things that makes me feel as if I’ve accomplished anything during the day is writing a piece for y’all. This is a direct result of being:

1. An empty nester.

2. Unemployed.

3. Lazy as fuck, and getting more so.

The question in my mind, though, is why I feel the need to “accomplish” anything in the first place? As I wrote in yesterday’s piece about patriotism, I am of this American culture, a culture which prizes productivity above all else. For most of us, even our access to healthcare is tied to what we produce rather than – as seems more intuitive – our need for medical treatment.

Productivity is good for many things, of course, but so is idleness. Despite the biblical admonition about idle hands being the devil’s playthings, I find great value in sitting around with a cup of tea and my scattered thoughts. Just as empty space isn’t really empty at all, the unproductive mind remains active, often overactive. If it were otherwise, we’d have no need for meditation and booze.

But we do have such needs because our revved-up culture also recognizes, somewhat begrudgingly, that people aren’t automatons. We need stretches of unstructured time. But how many of us feel guilty taking a week or two away from the workaday world? How many of us continue to check our work emails or sneak away to place a call to the office?

For others, productivity might be tied not to a paid position but to parenting or housekeeping or whatever other role they fill. We feel as if the day is wasted if the vacuuming didn’t get done or the children fed. (Ok, I guess it’s probably bad if the children don’t get fed.)

For Americans, productivity – particularly of the paid variety – is often how we define ourselves. “What do you do?” is the first question many of us get asked upon meeting somebody new. How we answer says nothing about who we are, but gives some indication of what we produce. Which is gross.

I don’t want to be judged by how much shareholder worth I excrete. At the same time, productivity is also how we measure our contribution to the well-being of others. When I write, for example, I’m hoping that you enjoy what I have to say. If you do, I feel productive, despite the American sacrilege of generating almost no income from my work.

When I make dinner for Martha. Walk the dogs. None of that is generally included in my response to the question, “What do you do?”

But those are things I do just as much as all the rest of it. Those are the things that provide actual value for people and other, more furry people. Listening to music. That’s something else that I do. Is it productive? Well, it produces joy.

Why do we equate productivity with accomplishment? While the two have some correlation, they’re not necessarily linked. I can be productive at my warehouse job plucking items out of bins, but what have I accomplished? I can feel accomplished after working out, but what have I produced? At the same time, when I finish writing this piece, I will feel as though I accomplished something because my desire now connects to the effort I’m putting forth.

Look at these unproductive losers!

Would we still feel the need to do stuff if we had more time to play around with? As I wrote the last sentence, it seemed to me that the choice of the word “play” is a more effective antonym to “productive” than “idle.” Play is the definition of being unproductive, so much so that we categorize play’s opposite as “work.”

But the two are neither mutually exclusive, nor does work necessitate the opposite of play and vice versa. My literal profession is “playing characters.” My former literal profession was “playing NFL football.” (9 years. 2 rings. #9years2rings.)

Moreover, I would argue that play is the highest form of productivity. What’s that expression: “If you love your job you’ll never work a day in your life”? And it’s true. We touchy-feely types encourage our kids to follow their passions precisely for that reason. We recognize that marrying a sense of accomplishment with a sense of productivity is the best way to live a life of deep purpose.

Why does purpose matter? Because we’re all at our best when we feel as though we’re contributing to the larger good through efforts we enjoy doing. Jimmy Carter wasn’t building houses for free into his 90’s because it was easy. He did it because he understood human fulfillment.

On the days where I write nothing and do little, I feel out of sorts. Like I have an itch I can’t reach. It’s not that I haven’t been productive, it’s that I haven’t been fulfilled. Productivity is an engineer’s word. It’s a gauge we’ve elevated into a virtue. Personally, I’m unconvinced. We are not what we make. We are only what we are.