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My parents worked service jobs their entire lives. One of my main memories of my time as a child is my dad napping on weekends while my mom was at work, with me

My parents worked service jobs their entire lives. One of my main memories of my time as a child is my dad napping on weekends while my mom was at work, with me sitting watching TV. As I grew up and learned about "self-actualization" and heard exhortations imploring me to follow my passions, those values quickly crashed against my lived reality. I had a span of time as a teenager, before I ever worked, where I applied those values to my expectations of my parents and felt disappointed. It took me a while to understand why my parents didn't have hobbies, abandoned self-study courses, did little outside of maintenance tasks, etc. The first chunk of my working life put me in positions where physical exhaustion became real. Some people really don't have the space in their lives to engage in non-critical life activities. Off the top of my head, I don't know of any philosophers that have explored those types of lives. Are those types of people destined to grind until their last days? This seems especially important to understand as safety nets like Social Security become less reliable.

bartvk 5y ago
Yeah this is partly something I recognize. Until the age of 7 or so, my dad usually had left for work when we got up, and would get back home only after we'd gone to bed. When I was around 12, he no longer worked Saturdays, but he'd be tired and angry. Nowadays, I understand they were trying to build up a business (and more or less succeeded). I've had periods when I started a freelance business and worked too much, but now that I've got a daughter, family comes first. But maybe that's a luxury.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Is it perhaps a luxury afforded in part from prior investments (in the form of hard work to launch and nurture these past businesses)?
  - bartvk 5y ago
    I hadn’t thought about it like that, but that does actually have a bit of truth to it. Realistically though, I realized that I was doing dumb, badly paying projects and then decided I needed to get good, well paying clients :D So no successful serial entrepreneur story there, more like deciding to charge more and invest the remainder in the stock market :-)
marttt 5y ago
> Off the top of my head, I don't know of any philosophers that have explored those types of lives. "Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work" by Matthew B. Crawford [1, 2] is one such book. The author holds a PhD in soft sciences, but works as a motorcycle mechanic. Having worked as a brush cutter and tree planter, I can fully confirm that e.g. physical work can be exhausting to the point that all you want to do at night is finish your household chores and then get to sleep. I'm definitely a bookworm, but I remember having much less interest in reading, abstract reasoning or even listening to music at that time. It is probably related to the day-long exposure to industrial noise that a brush cutter experiences. Your brain is tired. I've always found tradesmen interesting, but after that personal experience, I think I have a much better understanding for their occasional grumpiness and the "rough edges" they have. More often than not, they're probably just really tired. 1: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6261332-shop-class-as-soulcraft https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6261332-shop-class-as-so... 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26925445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26925445

bartvk 5y ago

Yeah this is partly something I recognize. Until the age of 7 or so, my dad usually had left for work when we got up, and would get back home only after we'd gone to bed. When I was around 12, he no longer worked Saturdays, but he'd be tired and angry. Nowadays, I understand they were trying to build up a business (and more or less succeeded). I've had periods when I started a freelance business and worked too much, but now that I've got a daughter, family comes first. But maybe that's a luxury.

sokoloff 5y ago
Is it perhaps a luxury afforded in part from prior investments (in the form of hard work to launch and nurture these past businesses)?
- bartvk 5y ago
  I hadn’t thought about it like that, but that does actually have a bit of truth to it. Realistically though, I realized that I was doing dumb, badly paying projects and then decided I needed to get good, well paying clients :D So no successful serial entrepreneur story there, more like deciding to charge more and invest the remainder in the stock market :-)

marttt 5y ago

> Off the top of my head, I don't know of any philosophers that have explored those types of lives. "Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work" by Matthew B. Crawford [1, 2] is one such book. The author holds a PhD in soft sciences, but works as a motorcycle mechanic. Having worked as a brush cutter and tree planter, I can fully confirm that e.g. physical work can be exhausting to the point that all you want to do at night is finish your household chores and then get to sleep. I'm definitely a bookworm, but I remember having much less interest in reading, abstract reasoning or even listening to music at that time. It is probably related to the day-long exposure to industrial noise that a brush cutter experiences. Your brain is tired. I've always found tradesmen interesting, but after that personal experience, I think I have a much better understanding for their occasional grumpiness and the "rough edges" they have. More often than not, they're probably just really tired. 1: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6261332-shop-class-as-soulcraft https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6261332-shop-class-as-so... 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26925445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26925445