Doing the work

May 23, 2025

We humans are a process unfolding through time.

We can be told an answer, but that answer isn’t true for us until we’ve lived it.

Indeed, this may be a fundamental truth of physics.1

There’s a quote from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that’s always stuck with me:

The solutions are all simple... after you've already arrived at them. But they're simple only when you already know what they are

This process of moving through time, of unfolding, can also be called work.

Work takes effort, and as progress is made, value is generated - even if that value is only of relevance to the one doing the work.

Learning to walk as an infant might not seem to be immediately valuable to those around you (although it certainly generates a lot more work for the caregivers!).

While it may not be a unique ability, it unlocks an exponential number of new possibilities for the human who has learned it.

This is why I don’t think AI will lead us to luxury space communism.2

AI will lead us, gratefully or reluctantly, to do what only humans can do.

I believe there will still be some work that only humans can do. Genuine creativity, insight and intuition will remain in the human domain.

Then there is work that humans need to do, not for economic utility, but for self-development, mastery and purpose.

I am sure that there are robots that could be trained to perform the Tai Chi form technically better than I.

But watching the performance would be the equivalent of looking at a photocopy of an artwork.

Something would be conveyed, and it might be technically impressive, but there would be little beyond that.

Watching me perform the 24-step form, however imperfectly, means something. The years of practice, of failure, of determination, of improvement, of learning and teaching and then learning some more - it is the embodiment of my struggles and my triumphs.

The point of the necklace is the neck.3

Whatever the future holds, there is no escaping work.

The question remains:

What are you working on? And why?

Thanks to The Liminal Lens for introducing me to the concept.

Shawn K for the term, can’t find where me mentioned though.