Or even the possibility of work. And even the unemployed have that.

Tonight, we are going to talk about work. About what work means, what work is, what work isn’t, and what it is life to feel forever excluded from it.

So let’s start with the basics.

Work, in sociological terms, is, strictly speaking, labour that contributes to the function and well being of our community.

I say “strictly speaking” because in this day and age, the connection between what we do all day and our community is tenuous at best.

This is especially true for those working in the private sector. The ad people and CEO types of your company might be able to sell people on the idea that this for-profit enterprise is a vital part of the global community, but it’s kind of hard to feel that connection when all you do is run the machine that slaps a sticker on the box.

Asides aside, the real definition of work in modern life is something like “exchanging labour for money”, which, as you can see, is radically different from the more basic “contributing labour to the communite” definition.

Plus, there is a subtler level to the sociological meaning of work because implicit with employment is approval. Every employed person has been approved by some gatekeeper in personnel or human resources or whatever, and their continued employment implies a continuation of that approval.

This is vitally important.

This steady, background stream of approval fulfills the human need to contribute to their community because in the modern world, our workplaces are our communities and our social roles are defined by it.

This stream of approval is absolutely invisible to the fish swimming in it because it is “normal”. Practically everyone has a job and therefore gets this reassurance all the time. It’s by far the normal thing to have in your life.

It’s taken for granted on such a deep level that people have trouble empathizing with us sad fish who are forever stranded on the banks.

You get up, go to work, come home, and relax. Thqat’s life. That’s how it works. It’s not questioned or even thought about. It’s what everyone does and it’s the primary source of public identity in modern life.

Why else would the first thing we ask someone we don’t know , besides their name, is “what do you DO?”.

Personal note : I live in fear of that question because I do not have an answer. You tell people you have no job and a vast gulf opens between you and them because you have just surrendered a huge portion of people’s ability to relate to you.

You might as well have said “Oh, I don’t breathe oxygen” or “I never eat food. ”

And even then, they would find it easier to relate to you than to a disabled person.

Your very presence in their lives reminds the fish that they are wet, so to speak. It makes them aware of something that, to them, is the rock solid unquestioned reality of life and that makes them very uncomfortable.

Human beings, as a general rule, do not like being reminded of that which to them is safely tucked away in their background rules of reality. Society is, in many ways, a public illusion, and if you break the rules of that illusion, you threaten people’s suspension of disbelief, so to speak.

And that makes them feel bad.  They can feel the destabilization of their reality and they know it is comeing from you. You are the one making them feel bad. You’re the one who is making them feel deeply scared in a way they can’t explain.

They want nothing more than to go back to sleep/and forget the whole thing, and the easiest way to do that is to exclude you and make up a justification afterwards.

The real reason is always “because you make us uncomfortable on a level that scares the shit out of us”, but human beings are compaasionate by nature, so they must therefore come up with a reason why it is all your fault.

That’s their moral escape hatch.

At the risk of stating the obvious, this is also why people hate on people on welfare. They correctly assess that unemplyed people are not contributing to their community and that basic human ethics considers that a sin.

Where they get it wrong is that they assume it must be a choice. To them, that is the only possible explanation because it is the only one that fits their assumption that, somehow, there is always more labour available than labourers seeking employment.

This assumption is, of course, unfounded. Ask these people what they think makes sure there’s always enough jobs to go around. They have no answer. Just a childlike self-serving faith that it must be true because otherwise, they would have to care.

Ergo, it can’t be true.

That leads us to people in my situation : disability, which we will define as “unable to work”. We make people esepcially uncomfortable because we deny them the easy route of deciding, based on no evidence, that we are just lazy and bad.

They still want to believe it because that’s what is easiest. And deep down, many people will feel like we are getting away with someone. Like we “get out of having to work” on a technicality and that makes them both very jealous of you and gives them emotional justification for wanting to punish us somehow.

After all, that’s how human life works : you do a bad thing, you get punished, are the punishment is justified and even applauded.

This is especially true for whose of us with invisible handicaps like my depression. Somone being in a wheelchair or wearing black sunglasses and using a cane gives out very clear signals that they are part of “those we protect”.

So I understand how, without those signals,. someone might think “oh, you don’t have to work because you’ say you’re depressed? That’s bullshit. ”

It is, of couse, far more complicated than merely showing up and telling someone you are depressed. But I can see how someone might think that anyhow.

And all of this comes down on the head of we, the disabled. We have the same urge to contribute as other humans, but we cannot. We are keenly aware of this failure and it causes us pain, day in and day out.

And we know what society says to us – that it’s fine that you do not contribute – does not compute. No amount of permission can obviate the heartache of a powerful instinct unable to be fulfilled.

For example, imagine that you are completely unable to have any kind of sex ever. The urge is still there but it can never. ever be fulfilled.

Do you think it would make a difference if someone told you it was okay that you can’t have sex? That you have permission?

And even in this day and age, its still harder to endure if you are a man.

This is why I constantly feel like a failure. I don’t contribute. Not in a way thay counts. Not in a way that is societally rewarded via money.

I want to work. I want that desperately. I have never had it and that makes me feel like the biggest failure in the world. ITtmakes me feel like I have been nothing but a burden on others for my entire life and the world would be better off without me.

But I can’t work because I can’t survive the job interview hell. Especially knowing that I have this massive gap in my work history I would have to explain.

Interviewer : It says here that you have done absolutely nothing with your life for 20 years. Why is that?

Me : It’s…. complicated. You know what? I’ll just leave now.

And it’s a short hop from there to not even trying in the first place.

And what that leaves us disabled persons with is a massive burden of guilt and shame, a desperate need that cannot be fulfilled, and a lot of empty hours to fill.

No wonder I play so much Skyrim.

It’s what I use to soothe the pain of unfulfillable desires.

While I am playing Skyrim, I don’t feel worthless or useless or burdensome. I feel good, because I am, in the game, a hero who accomplishes many worthwhile things and, via experience points and ;eve;ing and such, is rewarded for his work.

If only real life were that easy.

I take Paxil and Wellbutrin for my depression. And those will have to do.

Because no doctor can write a prescription for a job.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.