A short essay about....

 Jakob Hammer

WORK

Work - 1. Doing it

2. Making it real 

3. Getting it done, finished, fully cooked or parbaked ready for the next set of hands, talons, teeth, kneading, pulling, stretching.

4. Good enough

5. Perfect. The existence of this definition is highly debated. But. I personally think it only ever exists right

Now

Friday, September Twenty Second Two Thousand and Twenty Three.

I’m sick and that sucks! Because I want to make shit, but my poor poor nose won’t stop running. I hate going places while sick. Even if I know I’m not contagious. It just feels.

Rude. 

I’m working on a secret art project with Michael Kinghorn, photography legend and skanoisseur of the highest order.

We were supposed to make it real on Wednesday, but I got sick. Missing costume technology twice, costume design twice, sculpture twice, and statistics once has put me behind, far behind, in the work. I’ll be getting the woodshop demo tomorrow from Primo at school, but, I hate going places sick. Hopefully by then my nose will be finished with its’ super marathon. 

I like to imagine a library filled with the wonderful and terrible creations of me and my friends. Bursting at the seams with games, comics, tall-tales, films, photos and recipes. The library is in a beautiful little cafe located in a bustingly city. The cafe is called “The Bird Feeder”. The name is already taken by Tracy Aviary at liberty park. I don’t think they’ll mind sharing. The cafe exists as a third space, a common ground for the community, welcoming and cozy. Inside people play ancient games and new ones. Weave tales over the tabletop. I hope one day to make it real. 

As a kid, work was everything. What do you want to be when you grow up? From pre-school to at least third grade my answer was Spy. Because that was the coolest job of all time. You got to use gadgets, and play dress-up. Then it was architect, because minecraft of course, and then chef. 

Chef. I’ve completed almost every class at the SBCC school of culinary arts. I love to cook. It kills me. 

Because I look at all my heroes, and all most of them ever talk about is sacrificing everything for the work. It is getting better. Now some talk about taking time off and being good to the cooks under their command. About fucking time. 

But good working conditions as a cook is a privilege that few in the trade ever get to experience. The margins are soooo low and the work is fast. 

I have never considered myself fast. I’m slow (not really). I have attention-deficit-disorder. A real thing. It is such a real thing. And it is so difficult to explain it to somebody who doesn’t have it. Here’s my best shot.

When you’re dreaming, and you realize it. Oh shit. How radical is that? I could do anything. So you try and fly, but all you get are these huge molasses jumps. 

That’s the best I can do. That’s what the work feels like a lot of the time.

Until

BAM

Hyper-focus comes in like a fucking Kaiju to wreck house. All this is to set context for how I think about work. Because work is the singular defining issue of our time. Who does it? And Why? 

The current anti-work movement in the U.S speaks with abject disgust, and rightfully so, about the state of work. Labor strikes are happening across the major sectors of the U.S economy. The United States is seeing a much needed resurgence in labor and union power. It’s good stuff. The work right now is mostly bad. The work where people are least alienated from their labor usually sucks ass. Teachers are underpaid and overworked overburdened burnt to ash. When this sort of work isn’t terrible it is usually done by those lucky, skilled, self-sacrificial enough, related-to-the-last-guy-enough to get the job.

It’s not that in a perfect world we’d all skate around and paint terrible pictures beautiful poetry and crashing arrangements. But the total emancipation of all people from the brutalities of capitalism would bring about a revolution of really good work. 

Good work can be hard or easy. Tedious complex arduous or even pointless save for the ethereal purpose of creative delight which neuroscientists have studied so intently that we can now conclusively say, that yes, art is good for you.

    I’m twenty two now. A weird age. Sometimes I swear I can feel my brain growing up. Strangely enough puberty wasn’t that weird for me. I think it was probably the normal everyday amount of weirdness. This might be because I was homeschooled through middle and highschool, shielded from the social pressures of being surrounded by a bunch of kids going through so much. I wonder how those kids feel now about work. My peers. I can take some good guesses, and I talk to my friends about it. Whenever I talk to people about highschool and homeschooling I tend to get a few different flavors of reactions. “Lucky” and “Did you have homework” are amongst the top. My general vibe usually quickly assures people it wasn’t one of those super Christian and or conservative homeschooling situations. 

But I did have homework. My dad would have me write papers and reports on video games or architecture or The People’s History of The United States written by Howard Zinn.

But that wasn’t the homework. The homework was chores. The thing I dreaded after the work was done. Isn’t it terrible how the concept of 

Chores

1. The stuff you have to do.

2. The Consequences for your actions as a small, stupid, child.

3. The beautiful act of taking care of the home, your loved ones.

4. Helpin out.

I fucking hated chores, specifically doing the dishes. I am still attempting to mend the relationship between me and the kitchen sink. I want to love it but our history is very complicated. I want to keep writing, it’s 9:13 am. Class starts in about twenty minutes, no lecture today I don’t think. Gotta run. 

What do you want to make when you grow up?

The world is burning. I want to make games.