I have been thinking about work lately, as my relationship with it has always felt uncalibrated. To explore this topic, I am reading a book by philosopher Raymond Geuss called A Philosopher Looks at Work. Geuss examines the modernist notion of work, positing that there are six criteria for defining it, with the first three constituting its essence:
Exertion. It involves strenuous effort.
Necessity. It is a necessity of life, needed for survival.
Objectivity. It results in outcomes that can be independently measured and assessed, aka goods and services.
Distinction. It is a distinct activity best done in a space designed for working, aka a factory, office, co-working space, etc.
Seriousness. It is not meant to be fun or something done for pleasure.
Money. It is an activity one does to receive money.
We can separate the broader understanding of work, which could be defined as “effort toward some result,” with this narrower modern understanding outlined by Geuss. Both are presently necessary to sustain life, yet many people's relationship with them is foolish.
On one end of the foolish spectrum, we have “time drunks,” a term from Underearners Anonymous, a twelve-step program modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous to help individuals overcome “underearning.” They frame being an underearner as a mental disorder associated with horrible time management and a poor pursuit of personal potential, particularly in how it manifests within the market economy.
“Time Indifference – We put off what must be done and do not use our time to support our own vision and further our own goals.” - Underearners Anonymous, Symptoms of Underearning
On the other end of the spectrum, we have “work martyrs,” a phrase coined by a defunct research project advocating for the importance of non-work time as essential for well-being. A work martyr experiences guilt when on vacation, compromising their health and relationships by pathologically going “above and beyond” and priding themselves on their superior work ethic. In truth, they suffer from low self-esteem and place the needs of their parents, teachers, or employers above their own, hungry for validation.
Regarding this foolish spectrum, my default falls on the time drunk side. In school, I significantly underperformed, earning poor grades primarily due to zoning out and half-assing homework. This work ethic translated into my work life, where I could have won a gold medal for “goldbricking,” the art of doing less work while appearing like you are doing more.
Mostly, I've overcome time drunkenness partly by productivity-maxxing through methods such as Getting Things Done1 and Building a Second Brain2, and being bullish on principles such as “No More Zero Days.”3 More centrally, my time drunkenness is non-existent when I am doing something I love, like the writing I am doing now.
I was always envious of the work martyr’s seemingly effortless work effort and was confused about where they found their endless motivation. According to my armchair psychologizing, many work martyrs grew up with “learned industriousness,” a work ethic established through positive reinforcement, usually from parents or early-life mentors. The fundamental phenomenon can be described as children receiving reinforcement for exerting high effort, which also reinforces the sensation of exerting such effort, thereby conditioning the state of effortfulness as something inherently valuable.
Tragically enough, some of the more spiritually sensitive work martyrs recognize the totalization of work and mistakenly apply their work ethic toward some form of spiritual bypassing, meditating for ungodly hours and sacrificing the same things as when ensnared by work: friends and community. Conversely, time drunks avoided the suffering of learned industriousness and instead suffered from “learned helplessness,” or the phrasing I prefer more: “learned laziness.” Like non-lazy effort was conditioned in the work martyrs, lazy non-effort was conditioned in the time drunks.
There are things to learn from the drunks and the martyrs, our two fools of modern work. Aristotle’s view of the “virtuous mean” will be illuminating here. He considers the moderate position between the foolish extremes of excess and deficiency in character, outlined in Nicomachean Ethics. As Aristotle argues, virtue lies between the vices at the ends of a foolish spectrum.
What does the virtuous mean between time drunkenness and work martyrdom look like? We can find the answer to this by honoring the lesson each fool provides us. For the time drunk, the lesson is found in the word “drunk.” To be time drunk means to be so “drunk” that one forgets time exists. This forgetfulness is presented as a bad thing, given its inefficiency in the market economy. However, forgetting time is the right move when it comes to sacred considerations.
In philosopher Josef Pieper’s Leisure: The Basis of Culture, true leisure is a kind of spiritual silence, fostering a timeless state and opening one toward the whole. Leisure is not the cessation of work but a contemplative disposition that puts work in its proper place. This leisure ontology has gradually dissipated from everyday life, with a working ontology capturing more of our “time,” instrumentalizing everything toward work. Time drunks deeply intuit this, and their procrastination-induced state of timelessness should not be considered a terrible character flaw but rather an act of spiritual rebellion against modernity.
While the drunks hold one piece of the virtuous mean puzzle, the martyrs hold the other piece, which can be found in the word “martyr.” A martyr sacrifices themselves for something other than themselves. In the case of the work martyr, they sacrifice their well-being for the validation of others, which often involves a never-satisfied father, an overly demanding boss, or a lopsidedly developed guru.
The work martyr acts foolishly by sacrificing the wrong thing for the wrong reason toward the wrong person. However, the selfless spirit of their sacrifice is correct. While the drunks get the timeless piece right, the martyrs get the selfless piece right. One should not be working for their egos, greedily hoarding material luxuries, but they should work for those they live for and toward the wise lifestyle they are called to live.
Work should neither be demonized nor overly glorified but wisely seen as a necessary aspect of life that offers an opportunity for timelessness, allowing us to serve those who matter most.
“Rule numero uno - There are no more zero days. What's a zero day? A zero day is when you don’t do a single fucking thing towards whatever dream or goal or want or whatever that you got going on. No more zeros.” - ryans01, Reddit legend