Lowest Common Multiple -3: WORK

Lowest Common Multiple-3: WORK - Breaking the Mind Block

Eight Hours by Ricardo Levins Morales

WORK is one of the intrinsic functions endowed by NATURE to all the living beings. Work implies both, physical and mental work. Work expends energy – physical, mental and energy derived from nature in various forms.
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Why work?
Nature must have planned this function for humans, like all other species, to sustain themselves, to make them able to fulfil their “needs”.
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Food, Shelter and Clothing are the three – only three – needs of humans; the rest implied to be needs are only “wants”, which are transient, changeable, or dropped. Nature has created sufficient resources for the sustenance of all the living species, including humans, therefore, for their needs – food, shelter and clothing, therefore, no one, an individual or an institution, is authorized to intervene in these fields.
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For the species other than humans, Nature provides designs that are as unique, varied and in abundance as there are species. Some have wool, some have shell, some eat soil (earthworms), some eat honey, some are herbivorous, some are carnivorous… some thrive on blood. Work is a must to fulfil three “needs”: Food, Shelter and Clothing (as needed).
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FOOD: For this need, broadly, the following works are involved. To raise grains-fruits-vegetables, or take them from nature, prepare or cook if needed, eat (this too is work), cleanse utensils etc. In all the aspects of WORK, the body and mind work concurrently.
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Just imagine, how did the humans domesticated wild plants of grains and vegetables and fruits, ten thousand years ago. The civilized society and its division of labour, godpersons and sex-workers as well as Incarnations and Prophets did not exist then.
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In WORK, intelligence (i.e. intellect plus senses) operates. Inevitably, intuition awakens and develops with the use of senses. During Work, the success and failures and difficulties that arise help the function of Learning – education and learning to learn – is fulfilled.
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Senses evoke emotions, which too are form of energy, if used creatively, bring Joy – a form of Rest; otherwise loss of energy, destruction. Work makes body and mind stronger, intuition to grow, and become more able, and together help to keep Health.
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Human invented tools for ease, and machines to increase production. Why, when and who felt the need (sic) to produce more than the “needs” is another question. There still are communities who don’t produce more than their “needs”. To produce more than need is called “wants”. And only “power” and the “power-hungry” have the “wants”.
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Millions of villagers and the tribal work hard. But their labour or toil is never a mindless activity: It is an intelligent action, contrary to what the educated class believes: It is vocation.
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It is machine in modern times, on the contrary, that brought mindless activity; to keep the body occupied, i.e. occupation, and perpetual boredom to mind, which craves for excitement – 24x7 Entertainment. Hence illness to both, mind and body: Loss of Health. The “mechanical” personality penetrates the collective consciousness of other sections of mass society.
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In the place of five/ ten/ hundred/ hundreds… of persons, a single person works with the help of machine; it is denial of autonomy granted by Nature, of those people. It also destroys ecological balance. (City, for example, as a form of habitat, started by the civilised societies, symbolises the centralised power. Hence “city” denies one’s autonomy over “Shelter”, likewise, “Food" and “Clothing”.)
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It, also, affects all the intrinsic functions of humans and all other species. It brings their very existence to annihilation. For example, if one large tree is cut from the virgin forest, hundred other species of animals and plants are either destroyed or displaced or affected. The loss, however, cannot be recovered by monoculture plantation. It is sacrilege.
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By consenting and obeying the “Powers” and the “Powerful”, all the citizens of so-called civilised societies are going the way of entropy. Even the so-called dumb animals and plants can see and understand this inhuman act, only if we could understand their language!
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Without holistic view, we cannot comprehend or imagine what calamity the agrarian society of India must be facing. Is this what we call “Democracy”, “Development” and “Progress”?
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It is important to keep counterbalance or equilibrium, not only between the physical work and mental work, but between all the functions. Otherwise there shall be inevitable fallout: Pay the bills for medical, legal etc. services; Make new laws; Leave 300 million Indians "below poverty line"; Keep 400 million Indians illiterate!
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Note:
(1) more on "shelter" see “Housing: Shelter as Basic Need”, and on "architecture and planning" see Architecture and Biodiversity in India (my published papers).
(2) Illustration above: "Eight Hours" by Artist: Ricardo Levins Morales | quoted by Anders Hayden , "Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet: Work Time Reduction, Consumption and the Environment" (Paperback)

(3) Links to Previous Posts: 1. Arithmetic in Real Life, 2. Dharma or Fundamental Law by Nature
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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.