Work versus labor

Labor, on the other hand, sets its own pace. We may get paid for it, but it’s harder to quantify… Writing a poem, raising a child, developing a new calculus, resolving a neurosis, invention in all forms — these are labors.

~ Lewis Hyde from, https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/01/24/lewis-hyde-the-gift-work-vs-labor/

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I’m alway cautious about reading clever nuances into language. Sure it makes terrific sense to distinguish between, “mindless stuff I do for money”—my phrase, not a quote from Hyde—and “heartfelt stuff I do”. But is that in the semanic definition of the words? …in the common usage of the word?

I’m not certain what to do with this; It simply struck me as worth sharing.

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