Small Trades
Labor Day is celebrated as the symbolic end of the summer season. It is also considered the last day of the year when it is still fashionable to wear white.
It is also the beginning of a new school year and the return to family service and Dharma school !
Labor Day marks the beginning of the NFL and college football seasons. NCAA teams usually play their first games the week before Labor Day, with the NFL traditionally playing their first game the Thursday following Labor Day.
Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.
But sometimes I think we focus too much on our jobs. It is what we do but is it necessarily who we are? Have you ever noticed that people always ask “What do you do?” when you first meet? It is as if we value ourselves solely based upon our professions. This is also tightly associated with our salaries. There seems to be a dividing line between those who earn six figures and those who do not. But we are more than our jobs and salaries.
Instead, we should try finding meaning in our work. There was a time in America where work itself had value. It was how we fed our families, had a home and put our kids through school. This is derived value. This is illustrated by a photo essay of sorts by the famous fashion and portrait photographer Irving Penn (June 16, 1917 – October 7, 2009). After his death, there was an exhibit of his work entitled Small Trades. Rather than still-lifes of fashion models or Hollywood stars, Irving Penn began to focus on the nobility of laborers. In 1950 and 1951, he would bring laborers in off the streets into his studios in Paris, London and New York to do a photo shoot.
Interestingly, they exuded a regal confidence and sense of self. These were butchers, bakers and street sweepers who stood tall and self-satisfied. All of them were in service industries just like the ones that dominate the job market today.
Perhaps this Labor Day, we can begin to appreciate work as not only valuable in the sense of personal identity or monetary status but also in terms of providing a life for our family and friends. Then we might be able to look all workers in the eye and honor them for what they provide to our communities as well. Then we can ask what makes you happy rather than what do you do?
This alternative approach of measuring value is captured exquisitely in the following quotation, which may be apocryophal.
“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life.
When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.
I wrote down ‘happy’.
They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
John Lennon
