Love Came as a Child

For them that walk in starkness,
a lucid dream appears;
for them, a retreat from darkness
draws on the horizon and cheers.

Yea, there was a second and a third,
but when was spoke the first word,
that indeed was a concept: Love.
(Sung, as if from somewhere above.)

Then, held safe from all harms
as might lie in the wild,
from Labor to a mother’s arms,
Love came as a child.

Love, appearing as light,
thus cast darkness away
into new realms of night,
visible as shades of grey.

Abundant, how abundant,
and full, oh, so verily sooth:
Love, to all life incumbent,
our charge, our care, our truth.

What the shepherds saw,
what, to worship, sages sought:
loving care should be the flaw
to defy any, all, prizes bought.

The metaphor of the cattle stall,
is both the sermon and reminder:
A peaceable kingdom is here for all,
but only when we are in deed kinder. 

Love, as a child, came down—
Incarnate Love, we cannot shirk;
Life, Love’s cradle and crown
is, in every generation, our work.

© 2018 Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Dear Ones, 

My wish for you, now and always, is that Love be your most abundantly shared and greatest flaw. Imagine the epitaph: “Their one flaw was that they loved too deeply, too much…” May your days be filled with everything that can be shared with love and laughter; even hardship is soon overcome where Love is lively and at work. Many hands move the work forward, onward and upward. Blessings to all!

Labor Day, To Honor Workers

Labor Day,
to Honor Workers;
a holiday,
a reason for rest,
no doubt,
a reason to party
and shout,
a reason to forget
what it’s about:
We made it a Holiday,
so we’d never have to
think about it again.

To Honor Workers
takes more than a day,
takes more than a say
in safety and pay.

To Honor Workers
takes more than a job,
more than a car-key fob,
more than a tip can swab.

To Honor Workers,
we need to know,
we need to grow,
and we need to sew
the world in our work.

To Honor Workers,
know the world is our work,
grow this job we cannot shirk;
sew us, from laborer to clerk,
in policies that truly care,
in wages that are truly fair,
in the one-to-one parity we share
because we are human individuals.

To honor Workers,
take people off the streets,
give them a job and a place;
give them a reason to be,
a community to be for,
give a damn about the people
and what they, what we, need;
we’re all here to be for one another.

Labor Day,
To Honor Workers,
this is indeed the test,
to understand the latitude,
to find the right amplitude,
build character and attitude
fitting for a world of work,
for the whole World of Workers.

© 2017 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

A Preface To Joining

True enough, a blending,
to some extent, a mending
of some breach, a sending
of renewed hope, extending
from now to beyond pretending
that unity is only an appending,
together a mere attending.

No, this is a mystical kenning
to the purpose life is commending,
never a spectrum of solitary rending,
but a transforming and transcending,
willing to work through good and ill, wending
each way, a striving to build, unbending
the furrows of Eden to flower, suspending
any doubt that union is love ascending.

© 2016 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Good Neighbors: 4. Thursday

Have pity on me,

have compassion;
you are a person just like me,
so try to understand;
accept me, and I'll feel okay.

I came here to make a better life.
I share a room with five other guys,
so I can send my earnings home.

I know I don’t belong here,
I would rather be at home;
I know my presence offends you,
but you need me to do all the work
you cannot bring yourself to do.

It’s not that I look different,
not that I trip over your words;
my sin is that I am here.

You call it free country,
and then you take it back;
I work for you, and you speak against me
—you think of me as inferior.

I was born of inequality;
this is the stain you helped make,
a stain you cannot wash out
—the truth is on you.

Greet me,
and I’ll feel acknowledged;
pay me,
and I’ll feel my worth
—an honest share will bring me joy,
and I’ll forget how tired I am;
my spirit will be uplifted,
and I will call you fair.

Don’t push me out;
you need me too much,
and I need you, too
—we need one another.

If we can share this beautiful life,
if we can stand together for what is just,
the world will be a better place for everyone.

We both put our heart out there,
we both make sacrifices;
let’s build, from small kindnesses,
a world we can all share,
where everyone has a rightful place.

© 2015 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This poem is part of a cycle based on the so-called seven Penitential Psalms. The subtitle of the cycle is “Psalms from the Streets”. This entry is based on Psalm 51, and could be subtitled, “The Alien.”

The Irony of Labor Day

I have often thought that the way we tend to shunt aside problems is to crystallize them as holidays. Once the problem is a holiday, to which we can pay lip service once, annually, as we pour out our alcoholic libations, we put it completely out of mind. Labor Day is a case in point.

Labor Day has been celebrated nationally since 1882, if you can believe it.

The U.S. Department of Labor offers this explanation for the holiday:

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

The irony is that Americans celebrate American Labor with a holiday observance while international business and government batter away at the average laborer's ability to earn a living wage under conditions that are safe and humane.

There is no sadder testament to this truth than the fact that California still has no legislation to insure that shade and water are provided for agricultural workers in the fields. This is not a new issue. I can remember marching with my parents in solidarity with farm workers in the 1960s and 1970s. A great many American authors, Sinclair and Steinbeck among many others, outline in their novels—often in shocking detail—how bosses and their political cronies take advantage of people in the workplace, wherever that may be—whether in the fields or in any office nationwide.

When you go to your local farmer’s market and purchase the “amazing” organic produce that you love to eat, remember those who harvest the food that sustains you. While you are attending your barbeques, watching ball games, try to remember that Labor really does sustain the world we take for granted, and that we are all the laborers of the fields of life.

And then think for a minute: How is your workplace treating you? In our hyper-connected high tech world, chances are you are tethered to your job more than you might want to admit, and being compensated a lot less for the amount of time you tend your job. It is well worth thinking about.

On this day, put yourself in the sandals of a worker in another industry, for just a moment.

And say a prayer of thanks for all who labor.

Pins, Passwords and UserIDs; all the numbers of our lives

“Pictures hanging in a hallway

And the fragment of this song

Half remembered names and faces

But to whom do they belong

When you knew that it was over

Were you suddenly aware

That the autumn leaves were turning

To the color of her hair

Like a circle in a spiral

Like a wheel within a wheel

Never ending or beginning,

On an ever spinning wheel

As the images unwind

Like the circles that you find

In the windmills of your mind”

English lyrics from the song “Windmills of Your Mind”

Marilyn and Alan Bergman

(music composed by Michel Legrand)

I had an interesting encounter with Customer Service this morning. We had been early registrants for toll transponders, when such service came to our area. A year ago, we discovered that the transponder we had was no longer operating; we would go through the transponder toll lane, and no telltale beep would issue forth to signify that our toll had been registered. The system had photo identifications of our cars, however, and so we were never in violation, as the photo would be compared to our account information and verified.

Somewhere along the line, about a year ago, this was no longer good enough, and we were contacted by letter, and asked to call in to unsnarl what had previously not been snarly, but now for some reason was.

We called in, and the customer service person told us we needed to get not one, but two transponders. We could no longer share one between both autos. And they asked us to send them back the one we had that was no longer working. We did so.

Now, a year later, we have two transponders, but were sent a notice of “evasion of toll”. Guess what, one of the “newer” transponders no longer seems to be working. My husband checks out our on-line account (this was one of the “changes” or “upgrades” to transponder “service” over the years, so that customers can do all the work and the transponder people don’t have to hire as many customer service representatives). When we initiated our online account, years ago, all you needed was a customer identification code and password.

Today, when I called the transponder customer service line, negotiating the knarly phone system, (including the ubiquitous “please listen carefully, as our menu options have changed,” message that has appeared on most customer service phone systems in the last ten years, never to be changed again, but always to repeat that it has been changed, even if that change was made years ago, and not yesterday...), and was asked for a four-digit pin number.

Well, we don’t have a four-digit pin number. We never had one for this account; all we ever needed was a password and user identification code. So, I waited, while the automated voice yammered at me “the code you entered [even though I had not entered one] is not valid. Please enter your…” (sigh)

Finally, the machine gave up on me, as I waited on the line, and kicked me over to a live representative.

I gave her the account number, in response to her first question. Then she asked me for a pin number. I said, “we don’t have one.”

“You should have a pin number, and I cannot help you if you cannot give it to me.”

“Can’t we verify by address and phone number?”

“What is your address?” I supplied the address.

“And what email address would the account be under?” I gave my husband’s current email address.

“That is not correct.” Oops. My husband had changed his email address within the last six months, but had not updated it in the, oh, gee, several HUNDRED accounts we have all over the internet.

I supplied his previous email address.

“That is not correct.” GAH! We had opened this account so long ago that the email address used was one that was for an email service no longer available, owing to merging and submerging and overmerging of undermergable corporations by übermergable ones. “I am afraid I cannot help you.”

“Look,” I said, “I am just trying to tell you that of the three transponders listed, we only have two. One of them was no longer working, and we were told to mail it back, which we did.”

“Where did you send the transponder?”

“This was about a year ago. I know that they gave us an address over the phone, and we sent it there. Obviously, things have changed quite a lot since then, for you and for us. I no longer have a record of that information.”

“If you cannot verify your account, I cannot help you.”

“I can give you the numbers of the transponders we do have, surely that is something that will verify our account. You should be able to see this information.”

The rep listened patiently as I recited what records I did have to proffer, in the form of transponder identification numbers. I heard typing in the background.

“Yes, these are listed on your account.”

“Thank you, yes. And the other one that is listed we no longer have, as we sent it back.”

“Since you cannot verify your pin number or your email address, I will have to send you a letter in the mail about how to properly update your account.”

“I see…”

That phone call took about 25 minutes, and when it was over, I was really no closer toward my goal that when I started.

I might understand all of this multiple code business, if security were really at stake with regard to “the product.” This is not a stock transaction or a bank transaction, and while we use a credit card to pay for our toll transactions, surely our address should be enough to verify we have an account. It works for other accounts.

This kind of security is rather misplaced in our scheme of priorities. The fact that we must have unique codes (passwords, user identifications, pin numbers, etc.) for every single internet account (which often is a secondary account associated with an original service begun before the internet was available to the public) is nothing less crazy-making. We have a huge spreadsheet to tell us what all our codes are. Seems a little ridiculous, given that most of these accounts are not dealing with trade secrets, government secrets or anything except a very occasional monetary transaction that, yes, should be secure, but is often transacted through a secure webpage that you are transferred to on the website.

In fact, this is just how we were able to change our credit card information on the transponder site, without the need for a pin number!!!!

Meanwhile, customers pay the price for the inefficiency of the agency that does not remove old information when it is supplied or send a message informing the need for new, additional means of identification, like a pin number.

While we are chasing after the “circles in spirals” and the “wheels in wheels” of petty business bureaucracies, what more important life experiences are we missing?

Is this the aspect of technology that was supposed to make life easier and less work-intensive?

Is this the windmill of your mind, or mine?

Perhaps we are all now face-to-face with the dilemmas of “Don Quixote.”

A Composer and Poet Talk About Creative Process

Sanford Dole Ensemble presents:
"All New - All Local"
Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 8:00pm
San Francisco Conservatory Recital Hall
50 Oak St., San Francisco

As we await the premier (on February 4th) of Michael Kaulkin's new choral work entitled "Waiting...", we thought we it would be fun to discuss creative process. Since our creative work is often done in solitude (no conference rooms filled with people brainstorming), we rarely have the opportunity to sit down and talk about how we do the work. I came up with some questions that had been on my mind about my own process (if you could call it a "process") and thought they would be fun to field to the composer:

EE: I have to say, as a singer, I am really enjoying getting into this piece of yours; I look forward to its debut! And I am really glad you had time to talk about your creative process. So, let's get the ball rolling with a wild question right off the bat: When does poetry become music?

MK: That's a hard question, but I'll give it a try... I think there's a case to be made that poetry is already music, or at least that it has a kernel of music built in to it. It has inherent rhythm, although often perhaps only the poet really knows what it is. A line of prose may be read in infinitely different ways, whereas a line of poetry ought to have limited choices. Maybe it becomes music when the composer commits to one of those choices and assigns concrete rhythm to the lines.

EE: Mmm. I have to say that I share the notion that poetry is already a type of music—I think of it as "thought music."

[If there hasn't been one done already, I think there should be some sort of study done on the neurological impulses to speech and to writing, to see if there are differences in hemispheric brain activity between working with prose forms and working with poetic forms. My thought is that some poetic forms are a completely right-brained activity, while prose forms can be either mixed between right- and left-brain (e.g., fiction) or completely left-brain (e.g., technical writing).]

But, I think you are absolutely right about determining rhythm by committing to a particular inflection or reading, although I wouldn't necessarily say that a line of poetry shouldn't have more than one reading. I think that the beauty of poetry is that there can be an oscillation, if you will, from one perspective to another because of visual or vocal inflection. I think this is why one wants to see and hear, for example, different actors portray the role of Hamlet; each reading has the potential to offer a different view of that very rich character.

But, of course, this notion of inflection and rhythm and commitment to a reading naturally leads me to my next question: What are the challenges of working with text that is less attached to form and rhythm, and consequently may be less than lyrical?

MK: The only challenge is that the work isn't already done for you. You have to make up form and rhythm where it isn't clearly suggested by the text. I approach this in the same way an actor might approach line readings. I take a point of view and break the text down into the clearest, most speech-like rhythm that expresses that point of view.

Here's an example from your poem "More Things" that I really struggled with. You have this line:

Imagine what more things might rush to become,
Were we to enter into deeper conversation with infinity.

I actually had to, by way of trial and error, add punctuation, and visually break the sentence down in order to zero in on the right line reading. So, one option might have been this:

Imagine:
What more things might rush to become (etc.)

I ended up with something more like this:

Imagine what more things
might rush to become
— were we to enter
into deeper
conversation with infinity.

Of course, here I was trying to solve a number of other musical problems at the same time, so that also informed how I treated the line. This is a moment in "Waiting..." that's pushing from "introduction" mode into a more energetic section, so the line is broken down like that to add a sort of breathless quality as it builds up.

This makes me want to ask if you hear specific line readings when you write, or do they vary from reading to reading?

EE: Yes, thank you for that question. I have to say that this is one of the interesting aspects of writing for me. Many times, the words flow onto the page—though not always. (There is a piece I am struggling with now; while I know what I want to accomplish with "White Out", I am struggling with form issues. I have set down several tentative approaches to the words that I know are waiting to flow out, and none of them seems to be "the one.")

If the words do flow onto the page, my next challenge is to determine if I have a tone or a purpose to the resulting text. Honestly, sometimes I do and sometimes I don't—if we consider the flowing aspect to be a revelatory experience, sometimes you have to look at it for a while to (1) understand it and (2) decide how you want to present it. At that point, the challenge becomes one of—as you say—layout, particularly with regard to indicating pauses. I have to confess that I struggle with punctuation. The argument I often have with myself is do I punctuate the hell out of it to force a single reading, or do I leave the reader more choice in the matter?

In the lines you speak of, I clearly remember battling it out with different layout and commas and frustration over something that seemed as though it should be much more simple. And ultimately, that is what I realized. It needed to be less complicated, and so those two lines ended up with just the one comma, the single pause, between those two lines, to allow for breath. I did consider leaving those lines without a comma, but thought it would be impractical—or, who knows, perhaps I was making a concession to my left-brained need for punctuation!

Oh, and I also wanted to say something about the "breathless" quality you describe. This may indicate a clear difference between what I describe as "thought music" and some other poetic forms. I hadn't really thought about it before you brought it up, but it occurs to me that while our thoughts can go on and on, our speech (and our singing) is limited by the capacity of our lungs on any intake of breath. As a singer, I have to say "thank you" to the composer for having laid out the music of "Waiting..." in a way that allows us room to breath!

MK: This makes me want to ask you about endings, particularly in the context of this piece. How do you feel about what you considered to be the end to a poem becoming transitional material in the larger context of this tapestry of poems?

EE: Oh, I really like that question! I think one of the things that surprised me the most about this project was that you decided to use several pieces around which to frame this single-movement work. I thought—and I think I told you this—wow, you are very brave; I mean, there are a lot of words and they are not arranged in a particularly lyrical way. The poems are not even related to one another. I wouldn't have considered a weaving of these pieces together, as you have done—I am more used to thinking of each text as a single movement, such as in a song-cycle or a mass setting—but I find the idea very interesting; it offers the listener a completely different experience of the texts than a mere reading of the pieces in succession, and it draws the listener to think about a broader range of ideas at a single crack. I would be very interested to hear from people what they derive from experiencing that package of thought as music, particularly given the intriguing motives that appear throughout the composition.

We're running short on time and space now, and so I want to wrap up this segment with one of those difficult, catch-all questions that we often hear from people: In terms of the creative process, how do you field questions such as "where does it come from" and "what does it mean"?

MK: Well, the "where does it come from" question just baffles me. I can't imagine coming up with an answer that wouldn't be a disappointment. It comes from a lot of trial and error. In a large piece like this (or even a smaller one, I suppose) there may be one or two moments that hit me early on as How This Will Go. In this case there were a handful, and for me they came right from the text. These are spots where I knew from the beginning what they would be like musically, even if I didn't get around to fleshing them out until the last minute. So, the bulk of the process is just figuring out how to make the rest of it work with those key moments. I hate to say it, but it can be more like tiling a bathroom than some Romantic notion one might have, like that it might come to you in a dream, fully formed.

As for "what does it mean", I tend to be very cagey about that. I'll admit that I often have very specific ideas for a kind of narrative that would serve as the basis for form, but ultimately it's beside the point. We all know that music can pack an emotional wallop without any known program or narrative. Whatever such narrative I might come up with may serve to get me through composing a piece, but it's about as useful to the audience as the temporary supports under a new freeway overpass will be to commuters when it's finished.

I feel the same way about poetry (specifically yours). I often didn't feel like I fully knew what everything meant, but the emotional power wasn't lost on me. I deliberately stopped short of ever asking you what it meant. The reader should be able to apply his or her own meaning, and I feel that way about music as well, to say nothing of visual art.

I did get the feeling the "Come Again" was built around something very specific. Did you start out with any specific thing that it's "about", or did you start out with a general notion of "waiting" and see it evolve into something specific (or am I even right about it relating to a specific idea or incident)? I would love to know more about how that particular piece was put together.

EE: Well, that is a very good question, and I can actually answer it, in this case! While I cannot now remember exactly what the specific circumstances were at the time, I know exactly what "Come Again" was built around: anger! I remember that something happened to me at work, and the incident triggered me to have one of those big-picture realizations. I was struggling with the broad sense of complacency that is a huge environmental factor in our world. I was frustrated that so many people would rather put up and go along with systems that could be improved, rather than participate in bringing forward a contribution that could result in something better—I felt like people were waiting for someone else to do it, and that, to a certain extent, our society has been trained to that way of thinking and being. The anger just flowed out onto the paper, and was—in your words—"fully formed." (And, I imagine it was a good thing the words ended up on paper and not flying out of my mouth as unwelcome invective!) My work doesn't always come about quite like that (which is one way of admitting that I don't know where a lot of what results as my poetry comes from) but this piece did.

Meaning. That is always an interesting concept to ponder. I think that when I write, I am culling thoughts and emotions from my experience, and these can often have a specific meaning for me. What is so wonderful about for me about my poetic "thought music" is that while it can have specific meaning for me, it doesn't have to have a specific meaning for anyone else. [Don't you just love all that Cold War literature that explores the idea of one person discovering and owning and controlling the thoughts of another or of a huge group of people—we know that it just simply is not possible for that to happen, but wouldn't it be scary if it could?]

I love my diary of poems: it contains entries that have to do with specific moments of commemoration from my experience of people, places, events and emotions. Sometimes what hits the paper is not something I intended, and is something I need to study to understand; sometimes as the words flow out, I understand them completely. The lovely thing about this diary is that while all my thoughts are my own and mean something (more or less; specific or not) to me, I can share them with others and allow others to find their own unique experience of them.

Thanks so much, Michael, for joining me in this discussion about creative process! I would be glad to explore the topic further.

---

The poem "Come Again" can be seen in yesterday's blog entry.

Also discussed in today's entry is a poem entitled "More Things":

First, a call: sounds giving musical wings to ideas and desires;
Next, a response: potential rising from nothingness into form;
A complete transaction, resulting in creation.

Imagine what more things might rush to become,
Were we to enter into deeper conversation with infinity.

© 2006 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Working Well With Others

My children are working on a collaborative construction project, in their respective classes. The class is divided up into working groups of students, each of whom has been assigned one or several roles in the assignment: to design and construct a load-bearing bridge with toothpicks. The assignment sounds like a lot of fun, and a chance to work with a real-life construction project on a small scale and with a hypothetical budget. Once the projects are complete, there will be a contest between the classes, for best- and greatest-load-bearing design.

My daughter was complaining to me that the child on her team who is supposed to be engaged in management and oversight, in addition to make sure that the “job site” is clean and “safe” has been shirking these responsibilities. Normally, my daughter would just shrug and make sure things were handled, but in this case, two other team members have been out. So, in essence, my daughter feels she has been carrying the project, and she told me it seemed unfair.

She said that she had tried to communicate to the person in question, only to be put off or growled at.

I had to laugh.

How frequently do we find, in our lives, in our lives, that gate keepers, managers, people entrusted with the work of oversight and management seldom live up to their job descriptions or pay?

How often do we try to keep it all going, on our own?

How much stress does this add to our daily lives?

Does this affect our love of work?

Cooperative effort requires team players. Teachers in our schools work hard to teach our children to work together in problem solving. What do we adults model? Do we model best practices in the areas of cooperation? Or will it be marked on our life report card: “doesn’t work well with others?”

I suggested that my daughter speak to a higher authority about her grievances, namely to her teacher. I even advised seeking arbitration.

“Well, I don’t want her to get in trouble; then she’ll really get mad at me.”

I then suggested that I would make some small signs, to put into the hands of some action figures. The plan would be post the action figures around “the job site,” as if there was a strike picket line. The signs would proclaim:

                  “MANAGEMENT UNFAIR TO LABOR!”

My daughter was appalled. “Oh, MOM! That is not going to stop her!”

I said, well, perhaps not, but it would bring public attention to a situation that really comes up in the world of work. Such events can even delay or shut down projects.

“You just want to embarrass me!”

“No, I want to embarrass her into doing what she is supposed to do,” I replied.

“Ah, mom.”  She dismissed this entire notion as being ridiculous.

“If you don’t talk to your teacher tomorrow, the action figures hit the picket line on Friday!”

“Mom, you have no respect for me!”

“I have every respect for you, and your best interests at heart—you are a laborer and you are being oppressed by management!”

“Hmph,” she said, “well, maybe you should have a little less respect for me…”

Vibrations

All work folds in on all work,
like silken wind tossed waves in a field of corn.

Tend it well, tend it lovingly;
the yields will be of inestimable value.

From thought to mind,
from quill to parchment,
from symbol to sound,
your thoughts rise up
to shape the world.

Speak the world beautiful!

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

in honor of International Women's Day

Selling Ourselves

I have been job hunting, for over a year. If there is anything that has come to my notice, during this time, it is that people seem to be morphing into products. (I can't call this evolving.)

Erich Fromm wrote this prescient statement in an essay, published in 1955, entitled "The Present Human Condition":

Man has transformed himself into a commodity, and experiences his life as capital to be invested profitably; if he succeeds in this he is "successful" and his life has meaning; if not, "he is a failure." His "value" lies in his salability, not in his human qualities of love and reason nor in his artistic capacities. Hence his sense of his own value depends on extraneous factors—his success, on the judgment of others. Hence he is dependent on these others, and his security lies in conformity, in never being more than two feet away from the herd.

Fromm goes on to suggest that we herded humans have become alienated "automatons." Albert Camus, along these lines, said, "Without work, all life goes rotten; but when work is soulless, life stifles and dies."

Is that what we want from the work of "making a living"? That certainly not what I want. I would venture to say that it must be true for everyone that we want to have work that is meaningful, either creative or useful.

I have seen friends turn themselves into consultants because they think that will free them from the rigors of office hours and give them "more time". Instead of freedom, they find that they are forced to work all the time, and that they have to pay the overhead that any office must pay, with regard to equipment. There is so much more to self-employment than anyone ever realizes. And sometimes the service we sell is something that could, maybe should, be given away for free, as a public service, neighbor helping neighbor.

The internet has become the perfect place marketplace for selling oneself. Well, not perfect. In fact, it is rather ugly and sick, this marketplace, with messages popping up all over, video messages yammering at you, while you are trying to find information on pages that are chock full of attention-getting blurbs that are not at all helpful to your purpose. Selling "old secrets",  rackets and scams, this sham marketplace is all hustle and no substance.

Modern life seems to be a cycle consisting of consumers who are, in turn, being consumed.

In his all but forgotten book, Good Work, E.F. Shumacher saw this cycle as a modern metaphysics he defines as "materialistic scientism."

"The world of work," as seen and indeed created by this modern metaphysics is—alas!—a dreary place. Can higher education prepare people for it? How do you prepare people for a kind of serfdom? What human qualities are required for becoming efficient servants, machines, "systems," and bureaucracies? The world of work of today is the product of a hundred years of "de-skilling"—why take the trouble and incur the cost of letting people acquire the skills of a craftsman, when what is wanted is a machine winder? The only skills worth acquiring are those which the system demands, and they are worthless outside the system. They have no survival value outside the system and therefore do not even confer the spirit of self-reliance. What does a machine winder do when (let us say) energy shortage stops his machine? Or a computer programmer without a computer?

The traditional workplace has been downsized, both of meaning and dignity. I see people now working as grocery clerks who I discern have been pushed out of professions that live by the "free market capitalism" credo of profit, profit, no matter what.

Who knows, perhaps I will soon be a grocery clerk.

These are things I have been thinking about, while I look for work.

//
Fromm, Erich. "The Present Human Condition," The American Scholar (Winter, 1955-56, Vol. 25, No. 1).
Shumacher, E.F. Good Work. Harper Colophon, 1979, p. 123.