We shit on, shame, and shun people for giving into temptation, for following urges for what they are instead of restraint for restraint’s sake.
At least, this is the case when it is something, at least, minimally, at least enjoyable. High-cal hedonism and sweet sweet cigarettes. Getting head-spinning highs from wheel-spinning wagers or life-ruining lovemaking on a wired-up whim.
But then there are urges, compulsions, reflexes against reason that have proven profitable to somebody else, someone whose business is typically entangled with an authoritative source of moral messaging to make us give in despite the damage it might do to ourselves.
I am, of course, talking about work ethic.
DEAR GOD (whom I do not believe in, a parallel point to this overall piece), what DRIVES me to put in a little extra effort when there’s nothing to gain but stress and lost time? I am a deeply restless person – mentally, physically, emotionally – and everything supposedly wrong with me as a neurodivergent ne’erdowell directs me to constantly solve problems. I’m addicted to solutions. I don’t even like them. But I can’t help but think about them. It starts thinking about the problems, and it just spirals out of control, and somehow I end up with greater responsibility with little internal reward.
My entire life I’ve been trying to master the prized human skill that gets C-suites in their C-suites and union workers their seniority (godspeed to the union workers, but misery to the CEOs) of pretending to be busy, the key to covering your own ass if you want to justify keeping whatever you have. I cannot maintain focus on a task long enough to keep pretending; ultimately I will wind up working in some constructive capacity or another. At my best I have been given such little room to think in my assigned duties that the space for my mind to wander can only leap onto higher planes, like doodling cynical nonsense to trade at recess with similar souls.
But my MIND! CANNOT! TURN! DOWN! to the steady pace of that humming buzz of following directions, handed with no explanation and hardly any context of its history and who decided to build it this way to begin with. Written instructions from eras past simply will not do. I have to ruminate and contemplate and dwell on until something, like tea leaves, rises to the surface and I can put together an explanation to pass onto the next person who has some hope within them to want to know the why.
I am far too busy de-Rubiksing these cubes to come up with excuses for not getting work done. I am repelled by the social pressure to complain, first and foremost, about having too much work, and that will be my ruin, for I do not believe my work is of value; I just cannot pry myself from perceiving the most minor of problems, and I can’t stop myself from working to solve.