Going Back to Work

I’m going back to work after a couple of months of unemployment, and while I’m still looking forward to the weekend, it’s good to feel productive again. It’s going to be an interesting experience, since I’m going back to a new job at an old employer. In a way, it’s like going back to school as a kid. You’re sad to see the end of summer vacation, but happy to be back with your classmates in the day-to-day routine.

Going back to work has got me thinking a lot about the nature of work in general. Is working natural? I’ve heard theories that pre-agrarian societies had a lot more free time than more “civilized” people. Cavemen foraged and hunted, but did they work? Likewise, I have to wonder if people in a post-industrial society will have to work. If you lived on the Starship Enterprise, you could simply spend most of your time eating food from the Replicator and playing on the Holodeck. And yet, the people on the show have jobs just like we do. If we reached such a level of technical sophistication, would this be the case?

Whether or not it’s natural, I am glad to be going back to work. Don’t get me wrong, I love my time off, but only if there’s something to compare it to.