The Labor Party

I am a laborer by calling. Happiness for me is found in the productivity of setting up a party, not the relaxation and laughter of attending it. I needs to stop forgetting this, because once the work stops, no matter how much "fun" I try to have, I always leave the party depressed.

This isn't to say that parties are bad, or that the people who like parties are bad. I'm just not that guy, and it always seems that once the work is done, and the fun starts, there's nothing for me to *do*, so all the things I'm best at, working, teaching, problem-solving, go out the window, and only things I'm horrible at, like relaxing and being cool, are left.

I don't know if this is really a problem, I absolutely love getting things done. Maybe I'm too much of a freight monkey to ever enjoy being unproductive. Hands-down, the things I look back on as having been the most "fun" are the things that took the most to achieve. Crazy-long hikes in poor conditions, long nights at work, messes that defy explanation, and things like that are what I enjoy doing, because something is actually being done.

I don't know how to relax at a party and have "fun" like other people do, yet drop me into any situation that requires effort, mental or physical, and I'll have the time of my life, and look back on it fondly. Putting miles on my boots, running up a mountain, throwing freight like an animal, or simply spending a day pushing carts, those things make me happy because I've done something. Other people can do it, it's not that I've accomplished something others could not, it's that I've accomplished something so other folks don't have to.

I figure there are two kinds of people in the world. There are folks who live to achieve, create, and build, and hence love to work, and people who live socially, and live to be happy, make other people happy, and spread the happiness around. I certainly don't think that people like me, who are driven to the edge of self-destruction to get things done, are better, but the reverse isn't true, either.

We are simply different kinds of people. I look ahead in my life, I see a list of things to do before I die, an uncertain amount of time left to do them, and I'm eager to get to work. Other folks seem to look at labor as something to endure between periods of enjoyment. Try as I might, I'm not that sort of person. I look forward to the struggle, because that's what's meaningful to my life.

I've tried going to parties several times up here in Spokane. Every time I go, it seems the social folks take over, and there's no way for me to interact anymore. There's nothing intellectual happening, the subjects of conversation are inane at best, simple jokes, etc. There's nothing to be done, nothing to be debated, nothing to be reasoned with, nothing that takes any effort whatsoever.

I can't stand it. There's nothing for me at those places but the same ephemeral emotions that I can find in a productive day of work, only without the accomplishment to build on later. Give me an absurd amount of freight to move, let me lose myself in the labor, and when I'm done, I'll be grinning from ear to ear, dripping with sweat, and truly at peace with who I am.

There are a lot of different kinds of people in the world. I need to stop trying to switch groups.