₦airaland Forum

Why do we suffer?
To learn the lessons from our suffering so as not to keep suffering

Why do we work hard?
Until there's no need for hard work.

At the initial stage, hard work is important, until we, as a society, create an automation/device that reduces our time and effort we put into work.

Hardwork is a means to an end. It's not the end. The end is a life of efficiency and leisure created by the availability of automation which compels us to seek our passions, which strangely hinges on the activities we do that doesn't necessarily generate revenue/money. Example, painting with no intentions of selling, flirting with girls...

The inefficiency of using firewood to cook inspired the creation of gas cylinders. But should gas cylinders be the end, considering its hazard and the rising cost of gas prices?
Now imagine the technological shock when you hear people celebrating using firewood to cook all because it makes them look hardworking while chopping wood.

Imagine someone telling me that I should have paid a human book cover designer instead of using AI to design the cover of my two eBooks. Literally judging my ebooks by its cover. Imagine people celebrating hardwork for hardwork sake.

We build a bridge to cross to the other side, but imagine being so addicted and attached to building a bridge that we forget to cross.

Humanity should have gone past the need for hardwork and I'll tell you why hardwork for hardwork sake is still being celebrated

1) We create products that do not last/ Planned Obselescence/ Artificial Scarcity just to create Jobs

We work hard to create/ buy things we do not need to impress people's we don't know

a) The "Sealed" Smartphone: Most modern phones make it nearly impossible for a layperson to replace a battery. When the battery naturally degrades after two years, the consumer often buys a whole new phone.

The Result: We create a massive amount of "e-waste" to maintain a high volume of sales that keeps tech stock prices—and their employees' 401ks—growing


b) The "New" Fast Fashion Cycle: Clothes are now designed to last only a few washes (Planned Obsolescence) and to go out of style in weeks (Perceived Obsolescence).

The Social Pressure: Social media creates a scenario where wearing the same outfit in two different "posts" is seen as a social failure. People work overtime to buy "disposable" clothes to maintain a digital image for an audience of people they barely know.


Artificial Scarcity in the sense that inventions that could take humanity out of the crude oil stage have been hidden via the Patent Secrecy act.

2) We view Hardworking people as good people and non hardworking people as bad people

Labor is seen as a moral duty and "idleness" is viewed as a character flaw. We often use "hardworking" as a shorthand for "reliable, disciplined, and virtuous," while "lazy" becomes a shorthand for "selfish or irresponsible.

In many office cultures, the employee who stays until 8:00 PM is viewed as a "good" team player, even if their actual output is the same as someone who leaves at 5:00 PM.

Teachers are recommended to stand while teaching because it shows a sense of commitment and sacrifice, all of which are needless if the children they tutor can learn if their tutor sits.

In Nigeria, most primary, secondary and even university teachers are recommend to copy texts from the textbooks we already own, to write on the board, so that students can copy into their notebook.
Why can't textbooks be notebooks, or shouldn't there be digital alternatives that blends notebooks into textbooks? Why are markers and board still recommended in most schools?

This is the reason why most children close late from school, like they're working 9-5 like their parents, all because the time that could have been used for productive activities are being spent writing notes on the board for them to copy into their notebook. Has Nigeria reached the peak of intelligence that a solution to this anomaly can't be proferred?

3) Humans haven't learnt what they should do with their free time created by efficiency of machines/automation

Sociologists call this "Leisure Paradox"—we strive for efficiency to have more time, but once we have it, we feel anxious, guilty, or bored

Scenario 1: Online banking and grocery apps save you a trip to the store (saving ~2 hours). Instead of using that time for a hobby, you spend it managing email filters, updating app permissions, or researching the "best" vacuum cleaner on Reddit.

The Result: You feel just as busy as before, but the work is now invisible and digital.

Scenario 2: A machine now washes and dries your clothes in half the time. Instead of sitting on the porch, you use that time to listen to a "high-performance" podcast at $1.5x$ speed or track your sleep data on a smartwatch.The Result: Even your rest becomes a "job" where you are trying to meet a metric or "level up."

Scenario 3: An AI tool writes a report for you in 5 minutes that used to take 2 hours. You now have a "blank" block of time. Without a plan for how to use your mind, you spend those 115 minutes scrolling through a social media feed.

Scenario 4: Remote work technology saves you a 60-minute commute. Instead of using that hour for breakfast with your family, you start checking Slack messages from bed because the "office" is now in your pocket.

The Result: The boundary between work and life dissolves, and "free time" becomes "on-call time."

Why is this happening?
We haven't developed a Philosophy of Leisure. Historically, leisure was seen as the highest form of human existence (the time for philosophy, art, and community). Today, we view leisure only as "recovery time" so we can go back to work

The "Boredom Gap": When a machine takes over a task, it removes the "rhythm" of our day. If we don't replace that rhythm with a personal purpose, we experience a sense of vacuum that feels like anxiety.



Credit: Bertrand Russell, in praise of idleness

Google Gemini AI, for creating ideal scenarios

Engineers should be Philosophers with a positive foundation

https://www.nairaland.com/8603065/engineers-should-philosophers-positive-foundation#138205213

Unemployment should be a good thing. It should be celebrated, if you ask me.
Machine and automation taking over jobs should be a good thing.

A family man should be able to come back home and tell his wife "Honey, I finally lost my job!"

And his wife should be like "Awnnn, sweetie. Congratulations. I'm glad the machines have taken over your job. Now I and the children have you all to ourselves"

Unemployment crisis is bound to happen. It should be society's goal to rid ourselves of suffering in the form of continued hardwork just so we cannot be idle and give ourselves 'a purpose '

I have always imagined these in my mind, especially the leisure paradox but I don't really know how to put it. It really interesting you had the time to make research and come with this. I was locked in this paradox. I was a freelance graphic designer making over $500 a week from freelancing. However, I was busy, I found a purpose. At some point I started rejecting job offers just because it was too much work load.


After a while, I go people working with me. I outsourced over 80% of my job and earned more. I still found purpose. But everything lost it meaning when I started outsourcing 100% of my jobs. Now I got people who would do it better than I could. I charged more for a top-notch delivery. Although After some .months I lost purpose. It felt like I was wasting my time. I felt wasteful, not productive and at some point depressed.


The human mind is not fighting to die poor but to keep this euphoria of being hardworking while you hope to break the threshold of poverty.

A private school teacher that earned less than the minimum wage let say 30k feels he is hardworking. But in the real sense, he is too busy working and not thinking how to earn more because at some point he is busy and not a lazy man.

There's a lot I could pour concerning this topic. I'm just limited by the structure to contain my outpouring into.

The purpose behind the creation of humanity, as I've come to learn, WAS to grow.
Pay careful attention to the "WAS"

But 'growth' is a broad word.
How would I define it then?

Growth, for we humans, is to evolve over our instinct and Lucifer's temptation principle, using freewill, whilst becoming better at our craft.

From your username, it appears to me that you're a Muslim, and I wish I could explain the Christian's concept of Lucifer's fall, even though I'm not affiliated to any religion.

The friction or void we feel in our lives isn't necessary because we're doing what we don't like. It also comes when we're NOT doing the things we should be doing.

As a child, most likely of us likely played with our little toys. But as we grow, the need to play with toys drop and we quest for something else: possession. Then as we grow old, most of us begin to value the presence of genuine companionship.
So you see that our preference change as we grow physically. But here's the twist: What made us think our preference doesn't also change when we grow spiritually?
That right there is the friction we feel in our lives as humans: We as adults are still playing with toys, in the spiritual sense.

Might i refer you to Vincent Guillem Free PDF, The spiritual laws, where he categorizes spirits into Vain, Proud and Arrogance. You might be surprised, like I was when you learn the real definition of pride, amongst others. An understanding I gained when I fed the text of the PDF into Google's AI, Gemini, while seeking understanding

I believe I've written something about this in some of my topics here on nairaland. Here's a link to one
https://www.nairaland.com/8605838/love-also-being-vulnerable

Hamzaay:
I have always imagined these in my mind, especially the leisure paradox but I don't really know how to put it. It really interesting you had the time to make research and come with this. I was locked in this paradox. I was a freelance graphic designer making over $500 a week from freelancing. However, I was busy, I found a purpose. At some point I started rejecting job offers just because it was too much work load.


After a while, I go people working with me. I outsourced over 80% of my job and earned more. I still found purpose. But everything lost it meaning when I started outsourcing 100% of my jobs. Now I got people who would do it better than I could. I charged more for a top-notch delivery. Although After some .months I lost purpose. It felt like I was wasting my time. I felt wasteful, not productive and at some point depressed.


The human mind is not fighting to die poor but to keep this euphoria of being hardworking while you hope to break the threshold of poverty.

A private school teacher that earned less than the minimum wage let say 30k feels he is hardworking. But in the real sense, he is too busy working and not thinking how to earn more because at some point he is busy and not a lazy man.

Suffering isn't hardwork. Most of what we put ourselves through, in quest for life's purpose aren't really necessary, you know. Life's meant to be soft .
One of the best ways to be focused is to know what not to focused on.

Even Our Lord's prayer, which Jesus taught us as the right way to pray to our Father, and not all these gibberish being said these days said "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil..."
This means putting ourselves through temptations or staying in temptation, as a means to overcome it and prove how strong we are morally, isn't really necessary.

I'll tell you a personal story that made me realize something profound.

I had a plate of beans in my presence. I wasn't hungry at that time, but the beans looked pleasing to my eyes and the thought of devouring it came to mind. I told myself I'll overcome this temptation to eat this plate of beans so I can prove how strong my freewill over temptation is.

But then it was proving quite difficult as I was distracted from an activity I thought would steal my focus from that plate of delicious beans.

You want to know what I later did: I took the beans far away from me in the room, and I covered it with a pot cover. It was far from my sight. I didn't have to see it anymore and in time, the temptation to eat that beans slowly reduced till it was non-existent, until I became hungry.

At that point, something clicked in me. I understood why Joseph ran away from portiphar's wife, instead of preaching to her how wrong it was for a married woman to seduce her boss servant.
I also understood that part in Our Lord's prayer, "and lead us not into temptation...."
as the nairalander, helpyourself, had written in one of his posts
https://www.nairaland.com/6425606/morning-star-lucifer#99267400

If temptation was really necessary, why did God son, while on earth, taught us to pray to be delivered from it?
That's because temptation isn't necessary.

If temptation isn't necessary to prove a needless point to ourselves as humans, then suffering as a means to prove that we're hardworking and to give ourselves life's purpose isn't also necessary. Do you see it now.

As humans , we need each other and ourselves...to genuinely care for others ehule caring for ourselves, because we can't give what we don't have. How can we attempt to give care to others when we don't even care for ourselves.

If one feels their purpose in life is to be a painter, then their happiness comes when they begin to master the art of using 1000 different colors to paint, instead of just stagnating at using 10 colors. The stagnation was what caused the void in their life, amongst others, that we most times refer to as depression. Funny enough, the medical industry has a drug for depression. They're treating the effects, not the cause, all for money. The greed of mankind.

You could decide this very day to speak with the purest of words, to yourself and to others, and erase every trace of foul language from your mouth. That's growth.

I don't know you better than you know yourself, Hamzaay. Seek to grow. Money IS never an end. It was just a means to an end, as you've begun to understand now.
https://www.nairaland.com/8626659/want-things-money-buy-not


You're quite lucky you know, not having money issues like most of us have. You're one step to finding an activity that you could do that gives you happiness, and not something you do because you need to hustle money for food

Ask yourself, "what's are those activities that i liked while growing that my peer groups and parents told me won't generate money to me?"

What if you could find happiness doing such activities? Those activities that are productive to you and grows you, but you don't do because of a paycheck. That's a Gspot of life, you know

In schools here in Nigeria, SS3 science students are taught to memorize the first 20-30 chemical elements. They're taught to become independent of the periodic table

SS3 Mathematics students also are encouraged to learn to calculate without a calculator?!

All to what end? What's the point of all these suffering in our schools?

We're still writing formulas on paper in order to calculate a simultaneous equation, when there are calculators that can do these calculations in seconds!
We should as well encourage students to use firewood to cook their food
Gas cylinders should be abandoned.

Cc:
NotinButDtruth,
mjblinks,
Host78,
SixSeven,
NaijaNaWaa,
CreatedtwoRule

I think my personal philosophy and way of looking at work is quite different from this.

Personally I think hardwork means a lot of things to different people.

Farming is hardwork to someone but to another it's a pleasure.

I love going to farm but I hate staying on the farm beyond the time I want to spend there. In the beginning, you see me happy but when I want to go back home and they say we need to finish so and so first and I'm already tired, then I begin to hate it.

And this is the angle I love viewing my things from. Time.

Even the sweetest of wine starts becoming irritating when you're filled and yet it's all you have to drink.

Working hard is never a bad thing. We are here to be productive. We need productivity not to die of boredom.

Imagine waking up tomorrow and not having anything to do. You get the food you want and so on.

It looks easy, like a very good deal and tempting.

I mean for a lot of us, it's the ideal life. The dream life to have nothing doing and yet have all our needs met.

Now imagine doing the same thing every day for the next 50 or 60 years. It'll almost make you crazy.

Not having anything to do kills faster than actually having something doing.

And so, for me we need a better work/rest balance.

Not necessarily less work.

However, One's work should not cut so deep into one's time that he cannot effectively rest. And one should not rest so much that it cuts into your work.

Maintaining this work/rest balance keeps anyone healthy and happy for a long time.

Even if we automate everything today and there is abundant food, we will only reproduce to a point where we tip the scale.

This has been demonstrated by rats. Given abundance of food and no "work" searching for such food, the rats began to eat and multiply abundantly.

Yet their food never diminished but soon they turned on each other. It's a well documented experiment.

As much as I hate it, work is a very important part of our "health" as a specie.

The journey of Getting to the top is what makes the top meaningful.

Bitterness is what makes us appreciate sweetness. Without darkness, light will mean nothing to us.

So I beg to differ. Continued hardwork is not of the slave.

Slavery is when the choice of working or not working has been taken away from you.

I could be passionately working on my car from morning till night or on my farm under the sun and rain because I want to get abundant yields.

To someone else, it looks like slavery or suffering but it's something that makes me happy when I go back home to relax.

There are guys who go through the gym to get six packs and then there are those who go through surgery to get the same six packs.

Both get six packs but both have different stories, different meanings and when they look at their belly, they smile differently inwardly.

I think I understand you.
While efficiency of work should be created, the philosophy of how we should use our free time should also be taught.

The reason one might think there's nothing to do with thejr free time except replace it with more work is because you haven't yet to appreciate the beauty of nature and its abundance.
They haven't found themselves in nature yet.

Everyone was born with a purpose. Anyone one does that against that purpose is a distraction to them

You think there's nothing to do, but trust me, there's more work than you can realize.

We've been constrained by religion, science and dead/confused elders that we fail to see how much work we need to do

Do you realize that learning how to speak politely and rhythmically to yourself and to others is a job? You wouldn't believe this until you start

Science studies bees just for their honeys and how to create something from their discoveries that they can market via a monthly subscription as a mean to generate paper.
Forgetting that the study of bees is deeper than their honey. From their "random" motion to the 'importance' of their stings...
Whatever science cannot market and sell, they do not reveal to the public, because an independent public wouldn't need them so they'll be purposeless.

Look around you. Find time to be quiet with yourself. Let go of your phones and what not and just be alone in a quiet place. Then try remember what you'd like to become if truly you didn't have to do a job to get money to buy food and pay other bills. Relax and be truthful to yourself. You have to be alone in a comfortable place. The answers may not come immediately, but with time, you'll begin to magically see that you really have a lot of work.

Even watching movies is work. Do you know how many PDFs I have in my phone that I haven't yet read?

Build connection. Observe your surroundings. Your triggers. Why you do what you do to others and yourself.

Some people battle addictions. They recover and try to get their life back.

Trust me, words are not enough to type sometimes.
Sometimes I feel the English alphabet shouldn't end at 26 because they're not enough to form words to convey my feelings over the phone.
Hopefully someone can create a mechanism that can transmit emotions over the phone/a device, you know. That's work too

The work is so massive that there isn't enough time to replace our free time that the efficiency of machines creates, on irrelevancies, all because we want to while away time

Host78:
I think my personal philosophy and way of looking at work is quite different from this.

Personally I think hardwork means a lot of things to different people.

Farming is hardwork to someone but to another it's a pleasure.

I love going to farm but I hate staying on the farm beyond the time I want to spend there. In the beginning, you see me happy but when I want to go back home and they say we need to finish so and so first and I'm already tired, then I begin to hate it.

And this is the angle I love viewing my things from. Time.

Even the sweetest of wine starts becoming irritating when you're filled and yet it's all you have to drink.

Working hard is never a bad thing. We are here to be productive. We need productivity not to die of boredom.

Imagine waking up tomorrow and not having anything to do. You get the food you want and so on.

It looks easy, like a very good deal and tempting.

I mean for a lot of us, it's the ideal life. The dream life to have nothing doing and yet have all our needs met.

Now imagine doing the same thing every day for the next 50 or 60 years. It'll almost make you crazy.

Not having anything to do kills faster than actually having something doing.

And so, for me we need a better work/rest balance.

Not necessarily less work.

However, One's work should not cut so deep into one's time that he cannot effectively rest. And one should not rest so much that it cuts into your work.

Maintaining this work/rest balance keeps anyone healthy and happy for a long time.

Even if we automate everything today and there is abundant food, we will only reproduce to a point where we tip the scale.

This has been demonstrated by rats. Given abundance of food and no "work" searching for such food, the rats began to eat and multiply abundantly.

Yet their food never diminished but soon they turned on each other. It's a well documented experiment.

As much as I hate it, work is a very important part of our "health" as a specie.

The journey of Getting to the top is what makes the top meaningful.

Bitterness is what makes us appreciate sweetness. Without darkness, light will mean nothing to us.

So I beg to differ. Continued hardwork is not of the slave.

Slavery is when the choice of working or not working has been taken away from you.

I could be passionately working on my car from morning till night or on my farm under the sun and rain because I want to get abundant yields.

To someone else, it looks like slavery or suffering but it's something that makes me happy when I go back home to relax.

There are guys who go through the gym to get six packs and then there are those who go through surgery to get the same six packs.

Both get six packs but both have different stories, different meanings and when they look at their belly, they smile differently inwardly.