I'm in a rush today. Sorry. It's not, I swear, a reflection of your value to me, Internet people. It's just that I'm attending a conference every day for the rest of this week and I'm running a little late today. So, here's a rerun from a post I originally posted in November of 2006. In some ways I really like it, and in some ways I'm not so sure. This is how I always feel about something I've written. I hope you enjoy it.
On Work and Play, My Child
Fancy and whimsy are the luxury of the unoccupied mind, the dream of something less difficult, more wondrous, than scratching vegetable survival from the dirt or running down bloody survival in the hills or the woods. We now enjoy a season, my child, in which we, humanity, have pushed back necessity from certain hours and certain years and opened up a time for fancy and whimsy, a time for play. This is a gift we give to each other, a gift our mothers and fathers for hundreds of generations have given to us. I hope you love to play, my child, and I hope that you play every day exhausting all the strength of your body and your mind.
Fantasy, the dream of other worlds and wonders unseen, has been the subject of human play for as long as we know. To imagine these things, to push our minds beyond our senses, is to be human. As long as you live, my child, use your times of play to explore the limits of human fantasy. Listen to the stories others have told, and tell stories of your own. Dream, as we always have, of a place where your mind breaks past the influence of your hands and the limits of your strength and exerts itself magically to accomplish everything your heart desires. Give yourself a place for magic in your mind, my child, and let it live there forever.
But with that same mind, my child, see yourself and the world with clarity. Do not be sad when you hear that your time for unbounded play grows short. From forever ago until forever to come, being human, indeed being alive, means that you strive to survive. There is a joy in work, my child, and I would have you love that with all the energy you give to play. There is joy in craft and skill, and you've seen this even in your play. There is joy in starting something new and joy in finishing. There is joy in learning and there is joy in teaching. It will serve you well to remember these joys, my child, and to think of them whenever you can, because work is hard. Some days work will leave you drained. Some days you will use all the strength you have to finish the job. Some days work will be too much. Some days work will break your back and wound your soul. Someday you may claim responsibility for and entwine your fate with a job that will take your very life. Even so, my child, take joy in your work as in your play.
And what joy is there, you might ask, for the dead? Do not forget, my child, your times of play or your dreams of magic. Even more, however, do not forget that they were bought for you with the sweat and, ultimately, the lives of millions of years of humans at work. Do not, in your play, become so distracted by the dream of another world, a fantasy, that you allow it to usurp the place in your heart that should belong to this, your world and to these, your people. Remember to love humanity, my child, to love this world with all your heart and strength. Remember to love those who worked for you. Remember to love those children to come and, loving them, to choose your work carefully, that it might buy for them a time to play.
Love, my child, is the joy of work. Love is the joy of those who die having done, for humanity, their job.
Okay. There it is, such as it was.
Hello, friends. How are you today?
Love.
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