Knowledge work is a curse

Knowledge work is a curse.

It got us out of the fields and factories. But plonked us in front of a laptop.

And the problem is, we weren’t made for this.

For most of humanity, humans lived in very similar ways. Think about what life was like for a human 10,000 years ago. We spent about six hours a day in moderate to rigorous physical activity - hunting, gathering and foraging. We spent another four to six hours making tools, shelters or preparing food.

We were physically active. We were rarely sedentary and spent very little time engaged in purely mental tasks. We were hardly ever alone.

Humans had been evolving for millions of years to survive in that environment - a life full of physical activity and social interaction.

Of course, how humans live has changed massively since that time. But our bodies and minds are still the same. Evolution takes much longer than that to adapt and I think that’s causing us some issues.

Every day, I spend eight to ten hours hunched over my laptop, engaged in some sort of mental task that requires zero physical exertion. And I’m usually alone. I can feel the impact this has one me.

After ninety minutes of focused work earlier today, everything in my body was crying for a break. My mind was foggy, my back was tight, my legs stiff and my fingers cramping. My body was screaming to be used. And my mind was pleading for a rest. I’ve zero evidence to back this up… but I can’t help but wonder if this is why so many people are struggling these days. Because they have to live a life that their body and minds weren’t designed for.

So why don’t I just do something else? The problem is that I get paid to use my brain, not my body.

I’ve considered what I might do to be able to use my body more each day but I can’t think of any physical work that would pay me close to what I get paid for my knowledge work.

In this search, I learned about a job called smokejumping. David Goggins does it. They drop him out of a plane into the middle of a forest fire. He fights the fire and then has to make his own way out. Mad. Part of me craves this job. I want something that demands physical performance, that engages my whole body and mind, that requires focus and perseverance.

I think of Goggins walking out of that forest after he’s put out the fire. I’d say he feels damn good.

The last time I had a feeling like that was when I was converting my Jeep Wrangler so that I could live out of it for four months. I spent entire days in my garage tinkering, working with my hands and figuring out what I needed to do next. I thought of nothing other than the task in front of me and those tasks engaged me physically. I felt so satisfied after a day in that garage.

Now I’m not saying we go backwards

I’m sure a factory worker of the 1920s or a sustenance farmer of the 1800s would think I’m crazy. They’d snap my hand off for the life I live, to be free of the physical demands of their labour and the hardship that they endured.

I’m not saying I want to do back-breaking work tilling land all day, I just wonder what the next evolution of work might look like for us.

We went from fields, to factories to facetime…

Where next?

Is there a model of work that is more suited to how our bodies and minds have evolved? That engages us with the right balance of physical and mental demands, in a social context that can help us to feel good physically and mentally every day.

Hell, with climate change, we might all have to go become smokejumpers anyway…