When Work is Like Play

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The author of “A Guide to Civilized Loafing” points out that there is also such a thing as civilized working. Civilized living calls for enjoyment and satisfaction in the vocational lives of individuals. The antithesis between the activities commonly regarded as play and the activities commonly called work is too sharply drawn. Work should have more of the quality of play, less of the element of mere drudgery. Contrasting attitudes are shown in the hymn that adjures us to “work for the night is coming” and the poem in which Kipling describes the heaven of the happy artists where “each for the joy of the working” paints away at his own sweet will. The happy medium must be found. The fact that work is a prime requisite for happiness places an obligation on society—that of making work an acceptable way of life. “We hall not achieve even a fair degree of civilization until, by and large, the work we do is beloved work. In that blessed day, work and play will be but the rhythmic alternations within a life of absorbed and purposeful activity.”