Whilst our news media is obsessed with job losses, recession, skill shortage, and other capitalist-related pressures to enhance our LinkedIn profile, it might be a better time to reflect on ‘work’ and what it actually means to some/us.
I have been doing some reflection recently. And this question came to mind after recalling two memories, which I will now connect in no particular order…
The first was at university when reading a particular case study. I asked the lecturer a psychotherapist, why some just had no desire to work or were unable to hold a steady job. She replied with “I don’t know”.
The second example I think is more illustrative. I was giving a friend and his young son a lift in the car. At the time the father was going through a divorce and was struggling to get custody of the child. He popped out of the car to get something from inside the house. The boy was sat in the backseat. I don’t know why I asked him, or what urged me to ask this question, maybe it was to fill the silence or make him feel comfortable or it may have been to make small talk, I don’t know. It happened so fast.
I asked “so what do you want to do when you grow up Joseph (not his real name)?. He immediately replied back with “I don’t want to do anything”. I think I was so taken aback, confused, and shocked I tried to make light of the situation (just in case he felt he shared too much), “oh come on there’s gotta be something you want to do, we all work…” He replied with, “No, I don’t want to work”. Now it was real. After some time when his father and I were alone, I told his father what was said. He just awkwardly smiled and didn’t say much.
I don’t know why but this has got me thinking recently. Although the boy was very young at the time, it was his direct response, very adult-like and sure of himself, that stuck with me. What is it that makes some people have zero desire or the ability to want to even try or make themself capable of joining the working world? This got me intrigued.
However, as I reflect and write to try to understand this there must be certain exceptions. For example, it wouldn’t be fair to consider those with serious health issues, or mental health problems, which require prescribed medicine, or those that have experienced tragic trauma such as the death of a loved one. What I hope to uncover is the unconscious desire or loss of a desire to work in the most societal normative sense, such as an undesirability to enter the workforce.
If we pinpoint one area in the unconscious mind that could have such an effect, this could be the unresolved experience of trauma. A powerful early childhood traumatic experienced such a kind that its lasting effect continues to affect the individual long into adulthood.
Unresolved distress, which has been suppressed deep into the unconscious mind. This could possibly have been a moment where the child was made to feel inferior, powerless subordinated, and subjected to deal with such emotions alone.
At this point or maybe at several of these moments the child would have given up on the fallacy of shared common collective of the social order. Realizing that the experience/s had proven the child was truly alone in the world. This meant the child understood a parental figure was unable to provide the safety or containment the child required and instead understood it was alone in its abandonment.
If a parental figure that is considered as an honoring symbol could allow or even facilitate such a troubling infliction then this surely meant the ‘world’ was no different. And the child would also see this troubling as a reflection of the world, others, and especially the authority and at large.
So, if institutions of the workforce such as a government, organizations, and corporations can be considered physical representations of the paternal figure in as such they are seen as greater symbols of integrity, morality, and progress, then the managers and directors who implement the day-to-day control of ‘work’ would represent the illusion of all caring parent.
Thus, this structure of dishonesty has been built on the very manipulation of the individual. The main focus being ‘work’ converts and represses anything other than the progression and reinforcement of the institution of work to fully form an establishment. And as such, the cycle and system continuously subjugate maintaining its power over others.
The produce that it serves adds no societal value but actually removes all that is good from the individual and society. This fake ‘culture’ is nothing but consumerism and provides no meaning to culture, or collective values, and little betterment of the future.
It takes and removes the need to voice subjectivity and therefore expression. The false expression found in consumerism is nothing but a fetishism of material goods. This materialism, a state of perishable and decomposition is seen as the ‘goods’ or services its sells, and yet in contrast to the goodness, it claims to serve the individual far surpasses longevity.
And so in conclusion, the loss of desire to work under such trauma provides nothing other than monetary value, and no other meaningful value to the individual. However, the individual creates a new approach to work and pushes societal progress in its truest common collective. For example, they may write a blog, book, start a youtube channel they’ve been putting off for years, or finally learn how to paint a picture.
We could say the death of a loved one is the same as the loss of the mother to the child. This loss of the paternal figure is symbolic of the establishments, which symbolize all that we should idealize and at the same time casually inflict such rejection, often to serve its own needs of material wealth and self-serving. This traumatic experience of parental-loss/trauma leaves a sense of what is not fair in the world. And so these symbols are not accepted as great achievements but of what is actually wrong in idolization, of self-indulgence, of material goods at the loss of an imbalanced purpose and the greater humanity of goodness.
So during these times of uncertainty and confusion, start what you have put off all these years. It could actually be your saving grace.
