{"id":488,"date":"2012-03-29T13:57:49","date_gmt":"2012-03-29T13:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/?p=488"},"modified":"2019-02-11T20:58:56","modified_gmt":"2019-02-11T20:58:56","slug":"back-to-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/back-to-work\/","title":{"rendered":"back to work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Rice<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

i knew that returning to western\ncivilisation after time in india would be a kind of a shock. when i\nreturned to sydney after my three months in india in 1987, i was\nutterly repulsed by the obsene affluence, the brash materialist\ncapitalism that pervaded every aspect of the city. i ranted about it\nto strangers at bars and nightclubs, louise and i raved at each other\nand probably drove our friends a bit crazy … but the world felt\ncrazy. it was crazy. nothing in the west made sense after\nindia.
\n
\ntoday munich is peaceful, quiet, sunny; i can’t\nunderstand that despite the clear blue sky, i’m not dripping with\nsweat and i need a coat to go outside. i miss the colourful kolams\nand the constant tooting traffic. munich’s eternal baustelle (road\nworks), with their elaborate obstacle-course-like detours, are more\nhilarious than irritating. i’m watching out for strolling cows and\nsleeping dogs on the road instead of cyclists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Man<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

i’m thinking a lot about “work”\n– something that in the west implies having to do something that you\ndon’t really want to do, something rather tedious but that you get\npaid for, so you do it – and the different attitude in, for example,\nauroville, where they don’t talk about “work” at all but\nrather “giving service”. or at the ashram school in\npondicherry, where all the teachers are volunteers; yes, all of them.\nthey teach because they want to, because they have something to\nshare, to give back. in auroville people give service in areas where\nthey can, where they have skills or can contribute usefully. they\ndon’t get paid, instead they receive “maintenance”, credit\nwhich enables them to live. it’s not a perfect system, but it’s an\nalternative which – at least on the surface – seems to generate a lot\nless stress and a lot more satisfaction. during the festival i\nappreciated the large army of willing volunteers who enabled\neverything from cold drinks or coffee to transport to the playing of\ndvds during presentations. nobody suddenly expected me to operate\ntheir dvd at the appropriate time during their presentation (this has\nhappened in many previous situations!). there was always someone else\naround to do this, or to be sent on an emergency dash for a forgotten\nprop or a missing piece of equipment, or to take someone somewhere.\nwith more than a billion people in the indian subcontinent, the human\nresource is plentiful, and in this particular occasion it was a very\nwilling and competent resource. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Women<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

we work like slaves to pay mortgages,\ninsurances, and for unnecessary over-packaged consumer goods; while\nin india people are quietly sorting through rubbish, sweeping the\nstreets by hand, pedalling their cycle-rickshaws … happily? it’s\nhard to say, but there is definitely less stress and more\ncontentment. there’s a lot to be said for belief in\nreincarnation.
\n
\nwhy do we do the work that we do, and how\ndo we value it? is it only “work” if we are paid in\nmonetary terms? so much of western society would collapse if all of\nthose doing voluntary work stopped doing it, and yet the capitalist\nsystem pretends that this work does not exist or is not important.\nwhen we do things voluntarily we have a slight sense of being\nexploited or somehow not valued, and yet the reality in the arts is\nthat nearly all of our “work” is voluntary. i could decide\nthat this work that i do (for far more than 40 hours a week, and for\nfar less than an “average” wage) is in fact an offering,\nthe act of “giving service”. i can value it in other ways\nthan how much i am earning financially. but if i’m “giving\nservice”, who am i giving it to? the universe? the mother? the\n“audience”? does it matter? \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

i knew that returning to western civilisation after time in india would be a kind of a shock. when i returned to sydney after myRead More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":491,"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions\/491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.creative-catalyst.com\/expect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}