What Do You Do?

A different perspective on what constitutes "work"

Oct 31, 2022

This piece is a contribution to the Soaring Twenties Social Club Symposium, a monthly set-theme collaboration between STSC writers. The topic for this upcoming issue is Work.

Hello friends,

Sorry for the late email this week. I never send these letters at the same time, though, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. This letter will be a little different than usual; I’m sharing a poem with you. I haven’t shared most of the poetry I’ve written lately because I hope to turn it into a book you will all buy. There’s a karmic sense of irony in that today’s poem is about how I don’t “work” in the traditional sense. Either way, I hope this gets you thinking about work a little differently.

What do you do?
The first question, the first
opportunity to reveal yourself. 

What do you do? 
Who are you?
What makes you worthy
of inhabiting our civil 
society? What do you contribute?

I don’t do much of anything
according to my paycheck. But
what I lack in income, I make up for
in brain lesions, the scars left behind
from self-inflicted wounds. My body
thinks it’s protecting me. It doesn’t
realize it’s the enemy. 

What do I do?
I rest. I wake up exhausted
from fighting this never-ending
war. I go slowly, a creature of
small movements creeping
across the battlefield.

What is my value?
I pull the quiet from the ether
and weave it into this plane. I teach
whoever wants to learn. I transform
life into a lucid dream of possibility.

My worth is in my being. My existence 
is a love letter written to all those
who are lost, broken, and lonely. I am
a song played on repeat until
the lyrics come alive, knit themselves
into armor to protect against
the world’s expectations.

What do you do?
Actually, I don't care.
A better question would be,
how do you live? How do you
breathe life into your soul? Tell me
something fascinating, more beautiful
than whatever pays you each week.
Show me the thing that burns within
you. Ask a better question.