Woke up this morning
feeling EXCELLENT;
picked up the telephone,
dialed the number of my equal-opportunity employer
to inform him:
I will not be in to work today.
Are you feeling sick? the boss axed me...
No Sir I reply,
I am feeling TOO GOOD
to report to work today --
If I feel sick tomorrow
I will come in early!
Yesterday at
a friend's
art opening /
going-away party, I signed on as an officer of a new Provincial political party: the Work Ethics party, aka the
Work Less party, whose mandate is to promote an increase in the direct pursuit of engaging activities important and meaningful to the individual rather than an ongoing dedication to the
alienating abstraction of hourly wages -- if necessary (and possible), to the
socialist point of
legislating a shorter
work week (before
overtime -- also coincidentally helping to reduce
unemployment) as has been implemented in France and Germany in recent years, apparently towards an overall higher standard of living.
(This is not to denigrate work -- which is to say, any enterprise (towards use-value) of interest or passion pursued by a person; we are all workers, and everything that we do is work -- but rather to assault the notion of the dignity of labour -- an onerous activity engaged in solely to monetarily generate (exchange-value) for the worker some fractional proportion of the surplus value they provide to their employer; dignity is having time to do the things you want to do and/or believe in, like volunteer work or the unpaid labour of spending time with your kids (or painting paintings, traveling, visiting your friends and noding, even), instead of taking the second job to service the credit card debt accumulating on the new car already in the shop. Of course, in this regard working less also necessitates to some extent spending/consuming less.)
Not that we expect to be winning seats anywhere -- and it's not like the Left needs to be split any further -- but the existence of the group can potentially catalyse discussion of its core issues, perhaps ultimately contributing a plank or two to the platforms of others. The extent of our responsibilities is to run candidates in at least two ridings in this or the following provincial election, and we do intend at least that much on top of some great stunts.
The primary obstacle we anticipate is a clear delineation between "Work Less" and "Do Less" (or, say, from "Lazy and Irresponsible Parasite") when the message we hope to complement "Work Less" with is in fact "Do More". "Labour Less" would just see us getting closely acquainted to Jimmy Hoffa 8)
...
"I had to put up at least one painting containing a human figure; the absence was driving me nuts!"
"What about that one over there?"
"Well, that doesn't really count because it's a landscape, not a portrait."
"What, and in entering the car the driver ceases to be a human being but a component of just another feature of the terrain?"
(also some fascinating discussion of "shadow-painting"; capturing the external geography and internal layout of a room by painting the progress of the shadows cast on its walls by a gradually moving exterior light source -- say, a solar or lunar one. It's not often that I think visually. I would elaborate further, but all that talk about work was, euh, a lot of work 8)
"Could I ask for a big hug before you leave?"
"Fortunately for you, it just so happens that big hugs are the only kind of hugs I am equipped to provide."
...
Suffice it to say I don't ride home at sunrise anywhere near often enough.
There is much in the first half of this daylog to "earn" some enterprising spirits oodles of XP in the current social sciences quest. I would consider it, but not prior to a Marxist breakdown of our XP/voting economy. Am I exploiting myself here?
in our last episode... | p_i-logs | and then, all of a sudden...