How do you like physical labor for a living?

tessaesque said:

Trading one bad form for another.

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How is that? At least with my version you get to maintain your sporty shape. Isn't that a plus?

ab9924 said:

How is that? At least with my version you get to maintain your sporty shape. Isn't that a plus?

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Not at the sake of freedom.

tessaesque said:

Not at the sake of freedom.

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Isn't unemployment and living on government benefits a loss of freedom by default to start with?

I need a balance between physical and intellectual. One gives my body a rest and the other gives my mind a rest. Both provide a workout in their own measure.

My job is definitely not physical. I wouldn't mind something with a more physical aspect to it, if it paid as well. Though when it comes to the physical I'm not going to win any awards there. Never did well in sports in school, etc. I do tend to have physical hobbies though. Spending a solid day labor digging up a hedge you want to get rid of is kind of like a vacation from a pure non-physical job during the week. Of course, I could probably hire some guys from the Home Depot parking lot to do the same work in a couple hours that I do in a day. That's OK though, getting the work done isn't really my goal.

Today I cleared out the weeds along the drive to my nursery, spending all day hoeing the d@mned things, loading the brush in the back of my truck and hauling it off to my dump pile. It's always a special thing when the dust and various tiny weed seeds form a thin coating on all the sweat that forms on all of my exposed flesh, and especially as I am now getting a bit older and the crevices are starting to deepen a wee bit, it seems a dirtier task than ever.

Do I enjoy physical labor?

Right now, I am really enjoying this beer.

Physical labor with a moron is pretty fkn horrible. They talk all the time, about crap no one wants to hear. 3 workers who gain a moron are now 2, not 4.

Give me physical work over mental work any day.

Unless I have 8+ hours of physical work in a day my body does not feel properly worked and relaxed. I am left feeling like a wound spring ready to go off and do not sleep well. I also found that it greatly affects my mood. If I do not work my body for several hours in a day I do not feel like I have been productive enough and normally get cranky and unhappy with myself.

Gardener said:

It's always a special thing when the dust and various tiny weed seeds form a thin coating on all the sweat that forms on all of my exposed flesh, and especially as I am now getting a bit older and the crevices are starting to deepen a wee bit, it seems a dirtier task than ever.

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Hey man, you could probably sell that to women as a wrinkle corrector. Put them to work, make them sweat and collect all that fine dust, like putty filling the imperfections on a automobile body, slap some make-up over it (being careful to match the skin tone ), and collect the revenues from your miracle product. :lol:

ab9924 said:

I hate work, all kinds of it. I was brought up to look down on it. But I am fascinated and puzzled by it, so I do it when I can, without the knowledge of the people around me. But what is interesting, really, is how closely work is intertwined with our very health. It appears, that the more work we do, the healthier we get. And non-physical labor doesn't help.

So, now, that most non-physical jobs can be done over the internet outsourced for a petence, how about this for a replacement for those unsustainable liberal social programs.

Everyone who doesn't have a job or business, would be classified into weight groups, like in sports, and then given physical labor tasks with his/her group-mates. These tasks would include all labor that is physical, such as road maintenance, industrial trash collection, environmental clean-up, construction, transportation loading/off-loading, and so on. The people would be rotated between job types and sites daily, as well as between teams occassionally.

This would give everyone a healthy body, happy life, and an opportunity to meet new people. This would provide a valuable infrastructure support service, as well as a possible elimination of social program deficits. And I bet this beats retirement and mid-life too.

So, what would be your opinion?

In case this sounds communistic, it is not my intent, I am a conservative. But I like looking internationally for ideas and some of those communist countries did manage to make the low segment of society happier with well organized and managed large scale communal physical work. We could introduce it in the US, will eliminate obesity and stress, I bet.

Would it make sense to sell this to the republican campaign?

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In my late teens and early 20s, I worked in a lumberyard. It was extremely physical and I worked in extreme weather conditions. For the last 20 years, I've worked in finance and management fields, which is mentally taxing. I would take physical exhaustion over mental exhaustion any day of the week.

ab9924 said:

I don't know. My grandfather worked though sometimes, he was a nonconformist. I would like to work too one day. But I will probably never get to it. People smell how I disrespect the entire idea of it even before I come through the door. They don't understand that I don't want to disrespect work, I want to familiarize myself with it. In middle school, the mother of a classmate got me a job one summer, which was to spread and level concrete for a new car park. I REALLY got told off for it at home, but when I was doing it I enjoyed it a lot, walking on the iron rods, pushing the dispenser arm, then pushing the leveler (or whatever that translates to in English). I really liked the resistance of the materials.

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Out of curiosity I must ask: if you do not work how do you make ends meet? Where do you get your shelter, clothes, food and all that? I realize that one does not need to buy everything but economically sometimes it makes better sense to buy somethings.

Please clear this up because right now I envision you somehow as a bum or a loafer.

I make $15 an hour and its 50/50. The job I'm about to get is $25 an hour and its 70/30 with it being both more physically and mentally demanding. I prefer whatever makes me a badass mother****er. I like jobs that make me stink at the end of the day but mentally stress me out. At the same time I do design and art stuff on the side but that just comes easily to me so its whatever.

ab9924 said:

I don't know. My grandfather worked though sometimes, he was a nonconformist. I would like to work too one day. But I will probably never get to it. People smell how I disrespect the entire idea of it even before I come through the door. They don't understand that I don't want to disrespect work, I want to familiarize myself with it. In middle school, the mother of a classmate got me a job one summer, which was to spread and level concrete for a new car park. I REALLY got told off for it at home, but when I was doing it I enjoyed it a lot, walking on the iron rods, pushing the dispenser arm, then pushing the leveler (or whatever that translates to in English). I really liked the resistance of the materials.

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I assume your family is independently wealthy or something?

Most of us don't get the luxury of deciding WHETHER we want to have a job someday, you know.

I'd would prefer a mixture of the two but I tend towards the mental. Getting old, I guess. :roll:

Goshin said:

I assume your family is independently wealthy or something?

Most of us don't get the luxury of deciding WHETHER we want to have a job someday, you know.

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I believe he may be under some delusion that living a life without work is something good. There is vast loneliness, lack of meaningful challenge and brain rot. I have known a few "trust" babies in my time and their lives were anything but ideal. Many seemed to be searching for purpose and wound up spending their time in an alcohol/drug induced haze or getting lost in some other emotional difficulties. Others found that being industrious and being contributing members of society was more fulfilling than sitting around doing nothing of substance.

Connery said:

I believe he may be under some delusion that living a life without work is something good. There is vast loneliness, lack of meaningful challenge and brain rot. I have known a few "trust" babies in my time and their lives were anything but ideal. Many seemed to be searching for purpose and wound up spending their time in an alcohol/drug induced haze or getting lost in some other emotional difficulties. Others found that being industrious and being contributing members of society was more fulfilling than sitting around doing nothing of substance.

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Some people though are lazy and feel morally superior because of their ideology. Or some people only consider working for someone else as 'work'. It reminds me of people that I knew in my youth. They lived to party. Everyday they woke up (if they went to bed) and spent the entire day trying to figure out how to obtain party materials. I went partying with them a few days once and I found it to be a lot of trouble and work. Weekend over I was happy to go back to my job and leave their lifestyle to them. I mean its a lot harder to figure out each day how to get drugs/alcohol and food without stealing it than going to work each day 8+ hours. I tried to tell them that but they did not want to work for someone else and be slaves. Lol naive people are funny. Their life is much harder and stressful just because they perceive the world a different way than we do.

I recently read "Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford".

He makes quite a few good points. One point is today's lack of Craftsmen. When Henry Ford built his mass production factory, his employees did not want to work there. He ended up having to pay them twice as much to get them to repetitively do a few quick tasks, as opposed to being someone that could build a complete automobile.

I enjoyed working outside building houses from the foundation to the shingles when I was younger. By the time I re-invented myself, I was doing only the layout for the wall framing crew. The division of the home and apartment framing made the buildings go up much fasten, but I felt like a single cog as opposed to being a Journeyman Craftsman.

The divisions of the residential construction became so repetitive that it was easy to learn how to do the one thing. Then came the Mexican explosion. They do all of that type of work now.

I do miss being an in shape hard body. What got my attention was watching elderly men on the job site that had been reduced to picking up scrap lumber and throwing it into large scrap bins. I could see myself in the future and it wasn't pretty. I could tell by the repetitive motion pains that I had developed that I was heading towards the scrap labor crew.

When I was in High School we had metal shop, woodworking shop, welding, auto body shop, and residential framing vocational classes. Now you have to go to a community technical college to learn those skills. That costs money. Money that you can't earn because you don't know how to do anything.

Schools don't have the money for the vocations anymore. Football is very expensive.

ab9924 said:

I hate work, all kinds of it. I was brought up to look down on it. But I am fascinated and puzzled by it, so I do it when I can, without the knowledge of the people around me. But what is interesting, really, is how closely work is intertwined with our very health. It appears, that the more work we do, the healthier we get. And non-physical labor doesn't help.

So, now, that most non-physical jobs can be done over the internet outsourced for a petence, how about this for a replacement for those unsustainable liberal social programs.

Everyone who doesn't have a job or business, would be classified into weight groups, like in sports, and then given physical labor tasks with his/her group-mates. These tasks would include all labor that is physical, such as road maintenance, industrial trash collection, environmental clean-up, construction, transportation loading/off-loading, and so on. The people would be rotated between job types and sites daily, as well as between teams occassionally.

This would give everyone a healthy body, happy life, and an opportunity to meet new people. This would provide a valuable infrastructure support service, as well as a possible elimination of social program deficits. And I bet this beats retirement and mid-life too.

So, what would be your opinion?

In case this sounds communistic, it is not my intent, I am a conservative. But I like looking internationally for ideas and some of those communist countries did manage to make the low segment of society happier with well organized and managed large scale communal physical work. We could introduce it in the US, will eliminate obesity and stress, I bet.

Would it make sense to sell this to the republican campaign?

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I enjoy hard work. Unfortunately under Dr.s Orders I'm not supposed to pick up anything over 20 lbs.

ab9924 said:

But isn't it still better than the government getting you fat (and dependent) by those free cash handouts?

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The government doesn't make me or anyone else fat. That is the sole responsibility of the person living in that body.

I certainly don't need the government's input as to what I choose to do for a living...physically or mentally.

As long as I take care of myself and my loved ones, they can kindly butt out of my business.

ab9924 said:

But isn't it still better than the government getting you fat (and dependent) by those free cash handouts?

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This is a very cockeyed perspective how do you reconcile one with the other?

FreedomFromAll said:

Out of curiosity I must ask: if you do not work how do you make ends meet? Where do you get your shelter, clothes, food and all that? I realize that one does not need to buy everything but economically sometimes it makes better sense to buy somethings.

Please clear this up because right now I envision you somehow as a bum or a loafer.

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I am far from being idle. The trustees got people who assembled my curriculum, which centers around learning how people think (I guess), even though my favorite subjects are the maths and piano classes, not where some teacher pushes the statistics of right/wrong answers off a million sigmas by his own personality when grading me. My curriculum builds on learning many languages, which is why I live in different countries every year.

Goshin said:

I assume your family is independently wealthy or something?

Most of us don't get the luxury of deciding WHETHER we want to have a job someday, you know.

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I am not wealthy, the trustees control all my accounts till I get 18. They check the receipts of everything I buy, they control my cash limits, they review my schedules, ... . But I can't complain, they have been reasonable with me. They provide me VPN for work/games, approve me to go for invitations, they even overlooked a few of my fibs too when I really wanted to go out with a girl. As long as I get grades that they approve of and I keep my lunch appointments at church when requested.

Connery said:

I believe he may be under some delusion that living a life without work is something good. There is vast loneliness, lack of meaningful challenge and brain rot. I have known a few "trust" babies in my time and their lives were anything but ideal. Many seemed to be searching for purpose and wound up spending their time in an alcohol/drug induced haze or getting lost in some other emotional difficulties. Others found that being industrious and being contributing members of society was more fulfilling than sitting around doing nothing of substance.

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No I am not deluded (I hope), only I am afraid of people's inflated attitudes about work. Luckily nobody at this forum has that attitude. I kinda agree with the rest of your post, but that is all their fault, they forget what they are, that in essence it is out of the grace of the Lord that they are what they are, and not because of whatever they think. I usually remind them when they bitch (showing my absolute arrogance) to re-read Ephesians 2:10 which goes like we all do what (the Lord has) prepared for us IN ADVANCE to work at. They deserve their decline, they forgot that the Lord put them in charge of the land for the purpose of being a good host for the prosperity of that land (not themselves).

FreedomFromAll said:

Some people though are lazy and feel morally superior because of their ideology. Or some people only consider working for someone else as 'work'. It reminds me of people that I knew in my youth. They lived to party. Everyday they woke up (if they went to bed) and spent the entire day trying to figure out how to obtain party materials. I went partying with them a few days once and I found it to be a lot of trouble and work. Weekend over I was happy to go back to my job and leave their lifestyle to them. I mean its a lot harder to figure out each day how to get drugs/alcohol and food without stealing it than going to work each day 8+ hours. I tried to tell them that but they did not want to work for someone else and be slaves. Lol naive people are funny. Their life is much harder and stressful just because they perceive the world a different way than we do.

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What do you mean working for someone else as "work" as opposed to not working for someone else as "work"?

TheGirlNextDoor said:

The government doesn't make me or anyone else fat. That is the sole responsibility of the person living in that body.

I certainly don't need the government's input as to what I choose to do for a living...physically or mentally.

As long as I take care of myself and my loved ones, they can kindly butt out of my business.

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Well the OP proposal was for those people who are out of work and live on benefits, not you who takes care of her self/dependents.

Connery said:

This is a very cockeyed perspective how do you reconcile one with the other?

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The obesity epidemic is dominant at the lower echelons of society, therefore it is reasonable to correlate that with their cash flow and derivative lifestyle.

I cannot reply to this poll as I enjoy both depending on what the physical/mental labour is.

ab9924 said:

The obesity epidemic is dominant at the lower echelons of society, therefore it is reasonable to correlate that with their cash flow and derivative lifestyle.

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I present for you viewing pleasure mining tycoon Gina Rinehart the richest woman in the world...:lol: The world is filled with rich upper echelon obese people.

... she smote my eye....:wink2: