Comment by ajmurmann
9 months ago
These types of examples IMO show how good we have it now. The worst thing we can say about the job is that it feels meaningless. A subsistence farmer wouldn't have made the same argument about working the field. A 1900 miner wouldn't have made the same argument about getting dust lung in a mine.
We've reached a point that we can complain that our WORK doesn't provide meaning. It's an incredible luxury and we aren't when seeing that we have it.
Years ago I had a consulting gig where we ported a f2p game from iOS to Android. It was a rather tedious engagement and it was clear kids would spend their parents money on in-game crap to their parents surprise. We all felt bad about it. Meanwhile the office was kinda annoying because there was frequent fuseball and nerf battle noises. One day I looked around and realized that I was sitting in an ergonomic chair at an height-adjustable desk, drinking free water that was flown over the ocean from Italy so that I could consume it. At a similar age my grandpa fought in Stalingrad, spent time in a gulag and then became a poor subsistence farmer who worked odd jobs on the side. I was in heaven and didn't know it
Yeah I think about things like that too. My grandfather was born in the Great Depression, fought in the pacific during ww2 is some of the worst battles. Came home and went to work driving an oil truck in west Texas. He raised a happy, healthy family and never hurt any of them. Despite the hardships and horrors he endured he was a man full of love. If, on my death bed, I can say I’ve earned the right to stand in the shadow of his grave then I’ve done pretty well.