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The problem is not about being hard working or not hard working. It is about the constraints around that hard work; or lack thereof. In late modern labor societ

The problem is not about being hard working or not hard working. It is about the constraints around that hard work; or lack thereof. In late modern labor society the normativity is to achieve in itself, without any philosophical or ethical constraints that grounds achievement in real meaning. It is a pick-and-choose buffet of values and priorities, that is individually curated - rather than also being synchronized with others, the past and the future - and there is only one rule, that you have to achieve. The grammar of achievement is performance and excess. Everything is possible, and you must exploit yourself while trying to exhaust the possibilities. Except you can't and therefore it is a slow burn spiritual suicide, until you burnout, get into depression, have autoimmune problems etc and hopefully get a wakeup call. Except your therapist is not going to tell you to take it easy either, because they can't come up with any answer to lack of meaning other than work (and maybe to get a family) either. Not that there is any evil conspiring forces that have set this up, but it also happens having people exploit themselves in the name of achievement yields more than being exploited by someone else directly; to be told what and what not to do all the time is unnecessary when people are equally capable of auto-exploitation. Everyone carries little walking labor camps in themselves.

dqh 5y ago
Interesting that you mention autoimmune problems alongside burnout and depression, I hadn’t heard of that possible link before. Do you have any anecdotes on this that you would share?
- andrewjl 5y ago
  Not the OP but look into links between stress and inflammation.[1] [1] https://www.healthline.com/health/inflammation https://www.healthline.com/health/inflammation
insert_coin 5y ago
> The problem is not about being hard working or not hard working. It is about the constraints around that hard work; or lack thereof. In late modern labor society the normativity is to achieve in itself, without any philosophical or ethical constraints that grounds achievement in real meaning. It is a pick-and-choose buffet of values and priorities, that is individually curated - rather than also being synchronized with others, the past and the future - and there is only one rule, that you have to achieve. That is of course not true. Individually curated means synchronized with others as no individual exists in a vacuum; it feeds on others, on the environment, on history, and others feed on the individual, and the environment is modified by the individual, and history written by it. That it is free to evaluate its own future path is not the same as not being also part of something else, much less not take into account the something else. Achievement in itself is, unparadoxically, and achievement. That you don't agree with it says more about your synchronicity with the rest of society than the opposite.
- acituan 5y ago
  > That is of course not true. Individually curated means synchronized with others as no individual exists in a vacuum ... That it is free to evaluate its own future path You misunderstand. The question is whether individual value structures converge/approximate to a superstructure outside every individual, not whether individuals can use environment, history, each other etc as an inspiration for their custom tailored lives. The sense of the former was destroyed with the end of modernism. Everything dissolved in an acid vat of infinite relativism. Every normativity other than growth in the market got destroyed/crumbled. And individual achievement is merely the projection of that at the atomized level. > Achievement in itself is, unparadoxically, and achievement. That you don't agree with it says more about your synchronicity with the rest of society than the opposite. I take that as a compliment because one of the things I aspire to is to not get dissolved in the blind allegiance to achievement and excess positivity. It usually gets unnoticed but when people excessively project themselves to achievements and future growth; they turn into massive narcissists. And I am not using that in the pejorative sense; they lose a grounded sense of themselves. The freedom from "improving", being able to have leisurely, contemplative time, enjoying "returnless" social encounters for their own sake, having a sense of limits etc counter that. I wish they were valued more.
  - insert_coin 5y ago
    > You misunderstand. The question is whether individual value structures converge/approximate to a superstructure outside every individual, not whether individuals can use environment, history, each other etc as an inspiration for their custom tailored lives. You misunderstand. They of course converge, there is no other alternative but for society to be a reflection of their individuals. You don't like the answer so you pretend what they converge into is not worthy somehow because it doesn't adhere to some high societal morality standard which by the way just so happen to be the morality you ascribe to, which is of course nonsense. > I take that as a compliment because one of the things I aspire to is to not get dissolved in the blind allegiance to achievement and excess positivity. > It usually gets unnoticed but when people excessively project themselves to achievements and future growth; they turn into massive narcissists. And I am not using that in the pejorative sense; they lose a grounded sense of themselves. Oh the irony.
chii 5y ago
> and there is only one rule, that you have to achieve.... achievement is performance and excess. and yet, this is what led to most, if not all human achievements and progress. The modern quality of life that most people have come to enjoy is off the backs of people who _are_ doing their utmost to achieve performance and excess (aka, earn more than their spending). If everyone lived an idyllic, and idle life, we'd have much less modern life amenities and conveniences; stuff would be more expensive, and less wealth all round.
- throwaway2048 5y ago
  Its a vast overstatement to say that "all human achievement and progress" is due to people working themselves to death. Stuff like creative output suffers greatly if you push yourself to the limit, for instance.
  - marvin 5y ago
    I am reminded of a commend I read on HN a few years ago. "Here lies marvin, who valiantly sacrificed his life in the name of progress. Thanks to his heroic efforts, the trees in GTA 7 look very good." I'd love to read a proper study on how people experience different types of hard work. I've worked overtime myself, and it's been a memorable experience when it's been for just a few weeks or months, and in pursuit of something that meaningfully advances the world. But it would not be fun if it was only a peripheral advance, or it happened regularly. For me, it only works if it's something exceptional, to be done a few times.
- wildmanx 5y ago
  That's a very narrow view of "human achievements and progress". Did Mozart achieve because he was forced by peer-pressure to work around the clock? Picasso? Miles Davis? It's pretty sad if we consider Facebook, Google or Apple as the pinnacles of human achievement. Sure it's useful to have a phone in my pocket that can tell me at any time of the day what's the weather in Hong Kong or how to cook Pork Hock. Sure it's nice that I can connect to relatives in Spain or Brazil through Facebook or search for the number of current Covid cases in South Africa. But I could live with those "achievements" having come later if that had not meant a work culture that forces me into burnout. Same for space rockets bringing robots to Mars, electric cars for the upper class and drilling tunnels under some Bay Area city. And for those claiming the climate catastrophe is here and we need to act now .. yeah, let's think for a moment how we got here and whether overachieving and overworking have something to do with it.

dqh 5y ago

Interesting that you mention autoimmune problems alongside burnout and depression, I hadn’t heard of that possible link before. Do you have any anecdotes on this that you would share?

andrewjl 5y ago
Not the OP but look into links between stress and inflammation.[1] [1] https://www.healthline.com/health/inflammation https://www.healthline.com/health/inflammation

insert_coin 5y ago

> The problem is not about being hard working or not hard working. It is about the constraints around that hard work; or lack thereof. In late modern labor society the normativity is to achieve in itself, without any philosophical or ethical constraints that grounds achievement in real meaning. It is a pick-and-choose buffet of values and priorities, that is individually curated - rather than also being synchronized with others, the past and the future - and there is only one rule, that you have to achieve. That is of course not true. Individually curated means synchronized with others as no individual exists in a vacuum; it feeds on others, on the environment, on history, and others feed on the individual, and the environment is modified by the individual, and history written by it. That it is free to evaluate its own future path is not the same as not being also part of something else, much less not take into account the something else. Achievement in itself is, unparadoxically, and achievement. That you don't agree with it says more about your synchronicity with the rest of society than the opposite.

acituan 5y ago
> That is of course not true. Individually curated means synchronized with others as no individual exists in a vacuum ... That it is free to evaluate its own future path You misunderstand. The question is whether individual value structures converge/approximate to a superstructure outside every individual, not whether individuals can use environment, history, each other etc as an inspiration for their custom tailored lives. The sense of the former was destroyed with the end of modernism. Everything dissolved in an acid vat of infinite relativism. Every normativity other than growth in the market got destroyed/crumbled. And individual achievement is merely the projection of that at the atomized level. > Achievement in itself is, unparadoxically, and achievement. That you don't agree with it says more about your synchronicity with the rest of society than the opposite. I take that as a compliment because one of the things I aspire to is to not get dissolved in the blind allegiance to achievement and excess positivity. It usually gets unnoticed but when people excessively project themselves to achievements and future growth; they turn into massive narcissists. And I am not using that in the pejorative sense; they lose a grounded sense of themselves. The freedom from "improving", being able to have leisurely, contemplative time, enjoying "returnless" social encounters for their own sake, having a sense of limits etc counter that. I wish they were valued more.
- insert_coin 5y ago
  > You misunderstand. The question is whether individual value structures converge/approximate to a superstructure outside every individual, not whether individuals can use environment, history, each other etc as an inspiration for their custom tailored lives. You misunderstand. They of course converge, there is no other alternative but for society to be a reflection of their individuals. You don't like the answer so you pretend what they converge into is not worthy somehow because it doesn't adhere to some high societal morality standard which by the way just so happen to be the morality you ascribe to, which is of course nonsense. > I take that as a compliment because one of the things I aspire to is to not get dissolved in the blind allegiance to achievement and excess positivity. > It usually gets unnoticed but when people excessively project themselves to achievements and future growth; they turn into massive narcissists. And I am not using that in the pejorative sense; they lose a grounded sense of themselves. Oh the irony.

chii 5y ago

> and there is only one rule, that you have to achieve.... achievement is performance and excess. and yet, this is what led to most, if not all human achievements and progress. The modern quality of life that most people have come to enjoy is off the backs of people who _are_ doing their utmost to achieve performance and excess (aka, earn more than their spending). If everyone lived an idyllic, and idle life, we'd have much less modern life amenities and conveniences; stuff would be more expensive, and less wealth all round.

throwaway2048 5y ago
Its a vast overstatement to say that "all human achievement and progress" is due to people working themselves to death. Stuff like creative output suffers greatly if you push yourself to the limit, for instance.
- marvin 5y ago
  I am reminded of a commend I read on HN a few years ago. "Here lies marvin, who valiantly sacrificed his life in the name of progress. Thanks to his heroic efforts, the trees in GTA 7 look very good." I'd love to read a proper study on how people experience different types of hard work. I've worked overtime myself, and it's been a memorable experience when it's been for just a few weeks or months, and in pursuit of something that meaningfully advances the world. But it would not be fun if it was only a peripheral advance, or it happened regularly. For me, it only works if it's something exceptional, to be done a few times.
wildmanx 5y ago
That's a very narrow view of "human achievements and progress". Did Mozart achieve because he was forced by peer-pressure to work around the clock? Picasso? Miles Davis? It's pretty sad if we consider Facebook, Google or Apple as the pinnacles of human achievement. Sure it's useful to have a phone in my pocket that can tell me at any time of the day what's the weather in Hong Kong or how to cook Pork Hock. Sure it's nice that I can connect to relatives in Spain or Brazil through Facebook or search for the number of current Covid cases in South Africa. But I could live with those "achievements" having come later if that had not meant a work culture that forces me into burnout. Same for space rockets bringing robots to Mars, electric cars for the upper class and drilling tunnels under some Bay Area city. And for those claiming the climate catastrophe is here and we need to act now .. yeah, let's think for a moment how we got here and whether overachieving and overworking have something to do with it.