Work Beats Jail

When I was a kid I witnessed a knock-down drag-out argument between my mother and her younger brother that left quite an impression on me, one in a series of observed blow-ups that dot the landscape of my youth and doubtless did much to form my worldview, and not necessarily in a bad way. This particular event occurred when I was probably 12 or 13, one of those glorious endless summers when I had all the time in the world to explore the universe, lose myself in books, movies and the Pacific Ocean. My uncle would come down from Northern California and rent a beach house for a few weeks and everyone in the extended family would gather there, an open house overflowing with kids and adults and food and conversation. On one of those evenings my mother and her brothers were talking and singing and reminiscing, a few of them were certainly drinking or imbibing other aids to modern living, and the conversation somehow turned to the topic of Work, with a capital W. My mother, a high school teacher who has devoted her life to helping children and has inspired and changed countless young lives through her passion and dedication, made the statement that she "loved" her job. Her younger brother, then as ever a kind of mythical figure in my life, a brilliant, poetic, raucous, free-spirited and extraordinarily kind and sensitive man who also possessed a keen and biting wit and an easily ignited Irish temper, took issue with her proclamation and ridiculed the notion that anyone of substance could truly "love" their job, no matter what it was. Work, to him, was at best a necessary evil in the world and at worst a soul-crushing institution designed to destroy the spirit of humanity. He was also, at that time, a teacher, and a damned good one, but he made no bones about the fact that any good he was able to do in his job was in spite of it being a job, not because of it. To "love" your work was to him to admit defeat, to cede control, to shut the door on the wild and beautiful spirit of the world outside the closed parameters of your (then) 40-hour-a-week obligation. I remember him saying how horrendous he thought it was that the first question anyone asks when they meet a new person is "What do you do?", which really only means "What method do you employ to acquire money in the world?" Why is it that we have decided that particular question defines us? Why do we not ask "What do you love?" "What do you read?" or even "What do you eat?", "What are you afraid of?", "Where have you been, what have you seen?" You may have the right job, and if so good for you, you're luckier than most. But you don't fucking love your job. Stop kidding yourself, and stop devaluing the very notion of love by saying that.

It was a quite a scene, and it did not end well. My mother, no shrinking violet to be sure, was reduced to tears, and everyone else chimed in on one side or the other, and the night got out of control. It blew over, as those family fights always did, and there were plenty more summers and plenty more arguments to come. I, as a kid who loved his mother, was on one hand appalled and upset to see her attacked and felt horribly for her. But on the other hand I was quite taken by my uncle's ideas, and they stayed with me. A few weeks later my uncle sent my mother a letter, a beautifully written quasi-apology that continued the discussion in a much gentler manner. I don't remember all of the details but I do remember the last line. When he was young my uncle was a hell-raiser, and he spent a few months in a juvenile lock-up in Campo in East San Diego. He wrote vividly about the details of that experience and ended the letter by saying "Work beats jail, but not by much."

He had seen both work, jail and some third thing that was a life of his choosing, and he knew what he preferred. I can't help thinking now that I came into the game with a chip on my shoulder, in part because I took some of those notions to heart in a kind of idealized way when I was far too young to truly understand what they meant. My uncle did not choose to hate his jobs, and he surely would have been happier if he could have not hated them. My mother truly did love her job, and I don't believe she had to give up anything deeper or more valuable in order to do that. Both things are true. But I'm afraid I romanticized the idea that work is a "necessary evil" in a way that has done no favors to my intellectual or emotional development. I don't think I've earned that realization, the way my uncle did, I think I chose it as a kind of pose and have used it to define my own identity and set myself apart from the life that I am actually living. And that doesn't feel like bravery, the way it did when I saw it in my uncle. From this vantage point, looking in the mirror, it feels like fear.

I am 35 years old now, and I've never been to jail. But I've been to work, and I've not been to work. And I prefer the latter, without reservation, but I don't want to believe that *has* to be true anymore. I don't have to love my job, but I don't have to resent it either. I can try and make it part of a larger journey, I'd like to think, I can try and use it to find a way to be useful, to give and receive the energy of love, the way my mother has done her whole life. It's worth a shot, anyway.

My uncle died of lung cancer at the age of 55 in 1996, when I was 23 years old, and his death left a huge void in our lives that has not been filled. His legacy is one of love, kindness, beauty, art and wakefulness. He was courageous and sensitive and tortured, in his way. And as is true of all my heroes, I find him when I need him. I need him now, as much as I ever have. And here he is, slightly different than he ever was before, rolling around in my head, helping carry my thoughts where they need to go. Not this, that, or maybe that, or maybe this. Keep asking. Keep feeling. Keep laughing, and fighting, and then apologizing and admitting you know nothing except what you know and you didn't mean to hurt anyone, but what you really meant was this, and this is why. Keep your heart open, but call bullshit when you see it. Especially if it's in yourself.