There is work and then there is work

I have been wondering lately what it is that I am working at. I have my job of course, which is vitally important to our survival. It provides the resources that support our life and lifestyle. And to do so, it requires my attention and effort. So work is, well, work, a job, a series of consecutive tasks.

But then there is my work. What am I all about? What, besides merely struggling to stay alive, is my work. The Stoics were big fans of differentiating between those things that all animals do, and what sets us apart as a species. The fact of working to feed, shelter and clothe myself and my family doesn't really separate me from the cats, etc. They do the same.

Now the Stoics believe that two things made us distinct from other animals. We are able to reason at higher levels. We are also able to act virtuously to protect and provide for the entire species, to go beyond the family or tribe, and make global differences.

If we are able to combine the two types of work, that which causes us to survive at an individual level, and that which enhances the species, we are well placed. In some small way, most of us do qualify for that, if you follow the rabbit down the hole far enough. But for myself, I know that I want my impact, my contribution to society and the species, to be direct. I want to know that something I have done has made a concrete contribution.

But the brutal truth of it is, that I am just one fairly average man (given the context I am in) so I really can't expect to set the world afire. Perhaps that is why I try to find smaller ponds, in which I can act as a bigger fish, not in the predatory sense, but as a contributor. If I can make a bigger difference in a smaller group, will that satisfy my ego?

Perhaps that is all that it is. Ego, a desire for self-aggrandizement, to be a legend in my own time. Is it because I want to KNOW that I am important, that I need for the people around me to tell me that I matter? Maybe it is because I know that I am merely one of over 6 billion people, a small cog in a massive machine. And the machine grinds on into eternity, occasionally throwing up one of it's parts as a peak of achievement. But as Marcus says, when we are dead we are forgotten by the vast majority of people, and soon even those who remember us are dead and forgotten as well. And not long after that, cosmically speaking, even the energy and particles that made up our existence have been recycled to make other creatures and people and plants. We are litterally dust in the wind.

But that is the point. The thing we must, I must, understand. It is foolish and irrational to wish that I am other than I am. I am a cog in a six billion piece machine. I am going to die, and within a few hundred years, I will be completely forgotten. My ego rails against this, screams for fame and immortality. But my rational mind looks on. If I am to be a cog, I will be the best damned cog I can be. I will do the work that falls within my reach to the best of my ability. I will strive to be human. And that is my real work.