Today while writing about my daily work, and thinking about the meaning of my relationship with my work, I made a pause and went on to read what others have to say about it. I stumbled on the text below from Kahlil Gibran, and I’ll add it here as a remind to my future self.
On Work
Kahlil Gibran
1883 – 1931
Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.
And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out
of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission
towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of
the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings
together in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest
dream, assigned to you when the dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.
But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the
flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but
the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your
weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to
one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even
as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved
were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with
joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your
own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you
and watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “He who works in
marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler
than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of
man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”
But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide, that
the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of
all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made
sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that
you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms
of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds
but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison
in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s
ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.This poem can be found at poets.org