Don't Follow Your Bliss

“Ball Lightning in Space” (oil on canvas, 2007)
by Kevin L Nenstiel

“What would you do with your life, if you didn’t have to worry about making a living?” I’ve long forgotten who first asked me this question. Apparently, it’s a common question that careers counselors ask youth and young adults trying to decide what they want their lives to be about. At first blush, it seems reasonable: If you’d get paid for doing what you’d rather spend time doing anyway, then please, make it your career.

Work is central to human identity. We organize our lives according to the labors we undertake, either voluntarily or for pay. As economist John C. Médaille writes, neoliberal economics has historically assumed humans must be coerced to work and be productive; yet when you consider what most people do for recreational activities, like gardening or woodworking or art, these pastimes sure resemble work. If we could turn passion into paychecks, isn’t this a desirable goal?

Yet I’ve come to question its validity. Certainly, I’d love to get paid for writing. I’ve spent years cultivating the skills of telling a good story, creating characters whom my audience will feel something for, and putting them on paths toward accomplishing goals. Yet these skills have never translated into steady income. My writings keep bouncing back, unpublished and unpaid. Some writers’ blogs provide a decent side income, but mine’s barely bought one dinner out.

Indeed, sideline activities and hobbies arguably speak volumes to a person’s core values. The love of earth and harmony found in gardening, for example, reflects a commitment to cultivating closeness to one’s organic roots. My writing arises from a passion for understanding other people, and a desire to communicate. Sometimes these values are counterintuitive. The repetition of gardening, or the isolation of writing, conceal the spontaneity and intimacy which both hobbies create, down the road.

These values run counter to paychecks, which have separate ethics. Work isn’t something people do to satisfy inner hunger or give their lives definition; we work because work is a moral imperative. The demand that poor people work harder, smarter, or better—a demand embodied by “work requirements” on EBT and other safety nets—demonstrates that work is fundamentally moral, not useful. We’d rather let the poor starve, than protect them without “earning it” first.

The late Anglo-American sociologist David Graeber wrote, shortly before his recent passing, that we cannot separate Capitalism’s moral imperative for work, from the current devastation facing the Earth. As a construction worker, I’ve witnessed it. We build buildings nobody particularly wants, including new retail spaces while existing ones go unused. Our sites are malodorous pits of diesel exhaust and blowing dust. Yet we keep doing it, because if we ever stop, we won’t get paid.

A bench I made from old packing pallets, and gifted to a friend

I’ve been accused of being an old-school Communist because I disdain Capitalism’s implicit moral imperatives, like work. But Communism is no better. The ugly cities, scarred land, and blackened skies left by the retreating Soviet Bloc revealed a work morality that, like Capitalism, cared little for the damage left behind. Capitalism and Communism both view human life purely instrumentally: that is, if you aren’t employed, you aren’t contributing, and therefore your life has little meaning.

I repeat, humans are naturally drawn to work. If they can’t spend free time working, they’ll replace work with forms of self-abnegation, like passively watching TV or getting drunk. Both these activities serve the same purpose, to numb the human soul and abolish the dissatisfaction we feel if we can’t work. Try sitting alone some evening, sober, and do nothing. Don’t even watch TV or noodle around on your smartphone. Bet you can’t do it.

That’s why I can’t conscientiously tell people to turn their passions into paychecks. Because paychecks aren’t, fundamentally, about work; they’re about an economic morality of self-destruction. Work, meaning real work and not “gainful employment,” should ennoble people and fulfill the drive to improve our world. Employment, however, is a sinkhole of value, blighting the Earth and exhausting the workers who do it. Don’t let your passion turn into that. Don’t drain it of all meaning.

Please don’t misunderstand. If you’re a paid professional novelist, congratulations. If your hobby farm pays for itself, feeds your family, and lets you save for your kids’ college fund, keep at it. If you make a living doing what you love, or will soon, well done. But don’t let the economy’s moral imperatives turn what you love into a toxic black hole. Because once your paycheck starts ruling what you love, it’ll rule you, too.