Most people Labour, Very Few Work
Questioner: From Keating: "It's funny," Keating remembered at one time he had wanted to be an artist. It was his mother who had chosen a better field in which to exercise his talent for drawing. Architecture, she had said, "It is such a respectable profession. Besides, you meet the best people in it." She had pushed him into his career. He had never known when or how.
Then another excerpt from Keating: “He hated every piece of stone on the face of the earth. He hated himself for having chosen to be an architect. Then Keating stood, his mouth open. He did not hear what the voice was saying. He heard the beauty of the sounds without meaning. He felt no need to know the meaning. He could be led blindly anywhere.”
This third word is probably when he's listening to him for the first time. Right?
Then a few excerpts from Roark: "If you want my advice, Peter," he said at last, "you have made a mistake already by asking me. By asking anyone. Never ask people. Not about your work. Don’t you know what you want? How can you stand it not to know?"
Then: "I have, let's say, 60 years to live. Most of that time will be spent working. I have chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I am only condemning myself to 60 years of torture."
Then: "You want to know why I'm doing it?" Roark smiled, without resentment or interest. "Is that it? I'll tell you, if you want to know. I don't give a damn where I work next. There is no architect in town that I would want to work for. But I have to work somewhere. So it might as well be your Francon. If I can get what I want from you, I'm selling myself, and I'll play the game that way — for the time being."
Then: "Hey! These people were enjoying a day of their existence. They were shrieking to the sky their release from work and the burdens of the days behind them. They had worked and carried the burdens in order to reach a goal — and this was their goal."
Then comes the question: I am particularly confused on what I want to do with my life and feel like I’m eating with what I'm doing right now in my career. On the other hand, the character of Howard Roark is always sure and never displays any signs of doubt. How is Howard so sure? Is this because he is devoid of any physical conditioning? How would I ever know my calling — by trusting my instincts, ideals, or gut (using this one for the lack of a better word), just like how Roark was doing?
I've understood that 90% is physical conditioning, 10% is social conditioning. Fighting that 90% on priority and to stop complaining about the society is the way to go. I'm still exploring what constitutes that 90% within me and would like to accelerate my work through it. In doing this, will I be reaching any closer to my purpose or calling? Please guide me.
Acharya Prashant: One has to start from the place one is at. By looking at the character of Roark, you can at most be inspired. At most, an idea, a support, a motivation can come to you — that such a state is possible. But even if you know how the character of a Roark is behaving, you still have to remember what your own condition is.
Roark has been conceptualized as someone who has no trace of social conditioning blemishing his mind. He has been displayed as a perfect example of someone whose mind is absolutely free of the influences of society. Further, he has been shown as someone who does not feel much of attraction or attachment or aversion, fear or greed. He does not experience any emotional ups and downs — at least not any significant ones. So, not only is he free from social influences, he is also free of his own internal physical tendencies.
In such a situation, the person concerned can just spontaneously live for himself, decide for himself, do whatever he wants to and feels like. And whatsoever he does will be exactly what he must do. His instincts have now been purified. His thoughts, his being is now free. So, he doesn't have to think much. He doesn't have to go through the laborious process of thought or deliberation or introspection.
But if you say that you want to trust your instincts, ideals, or gut feel, then what is it that you would actually be trusting? Where would your instincts be coming from? old conditioning. Where would your feelings be coming from? Where would your ideals be coming from? And if you trust them just as Roark does, then you will be in for more difficulties. So, you have to see where you stand. And where you stand, you already have a lot of thoughts, ideals.
You already have a lot of things in your life and mind that you consider to be true, and an equal number of things that you consider to be definitely false. We don't live suspended in a vacuum, do we? In our own eyes, we all have a solid floor beneath our feet. In our own perception, we all stand on firm ground. What does that ground consist of? Our beliefs, which we do not call as beliefs. Our perceptions, which we do not call as perceptions. The influences that we have gathered, which we do not call as influences. All the illusions that we nurture, that we do not call as illusions.
What do we call them? We call them truth. We say: I know. I understand. I realize. I see. Don't we use these words? So our job is very, very different from Howard's. His job is to just proceed with life. Our job is to, first of all, cleanse and purify ourselves.
Howard Roark doesn't need to purify himself. He is crafted and drafted as already pure. So he doesn't have to go through the tedious process of self-knowledge, self-realization. He is shown as an awakened being — free of the world, free of himself as well. So there are certain liberties that he can take. You cannot take those liberties. You have to do what you must do.
And what is it that you must do? You have to probe the earth under your feet. Roark is sure of a few things. Aren’t you too sure of a few things? So the sureness is there on both sides. The only difference is: what Roark is sure of is something worthwhile. What most of us are sure of is just illusory — a great illusion, yet being treated by us as a great, reliable, permanent truth.
His job is to construct. He's an architect. He will raise buildings. Our job is to deconstruct. We must demolish buildings. His sketches are clean, so he can go ahead and raise those plans. Right? Our sketches are all botched up. So what do we do? Proceed with them, or first of all, clean them up?
Now, it would be a tragic thing and equally amusing, if we proceed with our sketches and insist just as Howard Roark does that this sketch will not change even by 1%. Not even one line is allowed to be modified. And we feel like saying that, you know, Roark had something in mind. Did he allow it to be modified? No. Did he allow anybody to tamper with his plans, his sketches? No.
So we too feel equally empowered and enfranchised. We say: if Roark did not allow anybody to question his drawings, who the hell is anybody in this world to question my drawings? I too have drawings. And there is nobody on this earth, not a single man, not a single woman who does not have drawings and pictures and sketches of her or his own.
You have sketches, right? You understand the sketches I'm talking about. We all have plans. We all keep drafting. What is our job? I repeat: Roark’s job is to go ahead and execute his plan. Our job is to contain our tendency to execute our plan. It has to be a totally opposite thing. Roark must not stop. He must not allow anything to stop him. The sketch is ready. The drawing is there. He must now look for a client and a contractor and get the building raised.
But if, God forbid, a building is raised as per our plans, what will happen to the building? And what will happen to the occupants? I don't think you would want to live in a building made as per your plans. His job is to proceed.
Our job is to stand still and look at ourselves as we are.
Look at your sketches. See how botched up they are. See that they don't have any central idea, any integrity. And integrity is a central theme with Roark, is it not? See that there is such a terrible miscomprehension. See that our buildings will not merely look ugly, they are also structurally infeasible.
But we still love our plans because they are our plans. After all, I thought of this. After all, this is my idea. After all, this is my understanding. After all, this is the conclusion I have reached.
Roark must respect his drawings like one respects scripture. In the office of Henry Cameron, there was no photograph, no decoration, save one plan of a building that had never been raised. Right? So when Henry Cameron has a plan — what is a plan? It’s a mental output. It's an expression of your mind. When Henry Cameron expresses himself, the expression is worthy of worship.
When Cameron retired and sent Roark to his office to fetch his stuff, he said, "Burn everything. Burn everything that you find in that office, save that one drawing. Bring that drawing to me. That drawing is my book of worship."
When a clean mind expresses itself, that expression is worthy of worship.
When Peter Keating brings his designs to Roark, what does Roark do with his designs? He just slashes everything that he finds is there. He says, "Remove this. Remove this. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong." That’s what we need to do with our designs. Do you understand designs? Designs mean intentions, desires. What are designs? Intentions, desires, conclusions, knowledge, beliefs.
If you clearly see that you identify more with Keatings than with Roarks, then due to your plans — what was done to Keating's plans? Were they worthy of being executed? They were not. They were worthy of being dismissed. So, learn to dismiss yourself. Learn to slay your confidence.
And obviously, the confidence is not much. Was Keating ever very confident of his plans? He would look at what he has drawn and feel like vomiting on it. That’s the story of our life. We too are never certain of ourselves. But that's a very curious thing with human beings — in spite of being deeply uncertain about themselves, yet they manage to carry on with life in a most confident way.
In fact, not only are we confident of ourselves, our confidence reaches out to other people and tries to convince them of beliefs we ourselves are deeply uncertain of.
Demolish. That’s your job. Let him raise, you must demolish. He must give concrete shape to his expression, and we must look clearly at our expression and see the falseness contained in it. Are you getting it? Then you have asked about calling. What is the right work to be done? There is work that one needs to do to run the body. Right? And such work even animals have to do. This you need not call as work.
This you can call as the labor of living — that if you are alive, then you have to do something to feel yourself. This even animals have to do. This is not work.
What is work? Work is that which you do in order to satisfy what you may call your gaping consciousness or thirsty soul. That is what defines work. That's what you need to figure out, keeping this strict criterion in mind, I have to do that which will offer me contentment. And obviously, this has to be placed at a much higher level than the labor of living.
If someone says that 90% of his life and time are just being consumed by the labor of living, then obviously he'll have no time left for real work. The purpose of all human progress, all technological development, is to give you more and more free time and resources and space to do real work.
Labor you do in order to satisfy the body. Work is that which you do to satisfy your consciousness. Technology is there so that you have to do a minimum amount of labor. Instead, if you start increasing your physical demands and appetite and start using technology and more and more of technology to just feed and stoke your physicality, then it's a great ruin.
The trick is to satisfy the physical with the least amount of labor, so that you have time to do the real work, so that you have resources to do the real work. Labor is a nuisance. Labor is like a tax you have to pay for living. Work is the delight of life.
Do you understand the difference between these two? Most people do not know any work. They only know labor, because they work only for the sake of the body. If you work for the sake of the body, it is called labor. And when I say body, that includes all the physical tendencies. It’s the physical tendencies that want you to consume more and more.
If you work for the sake of consumption, then you are just laboring. You belong to the category of animals. And you are far worse than animals because animals labor far less than many human beings do.
Look at all those who are working for the sake of their ambitions. And ambitions rarely correspond to consciousness. They correspond more to consumption. "If I’ll have more, I’ll be able to consume more" that’s what ambition says. So they are laboring, and they are laboring harder than animals do.
Work — real work — that is as absent from their lives as it is absent from the lives of animals. So even the most hardworking person, even the fellow who has reached great places in society with massive achievements, might just be laboring like animals. In fact, that is what happens most of the time in most of these cases.
When you look at a hard worker, you must clearly ask him, and ask yourself — what is the hard work for? Is the hard work real work, or is it just labor? If hard work belongs to the dimension of labor, then it deserves no respect. Are you getting it?
It's a good question to ask yourself: How much of my effort is labor, and how much of it is work?
If the intention is right, then one can convert labor into work. And if the intention is misplaced, then even a great opportunity for work can be degraded into mere labor.
