Work is human life.
Thus, as health, happiness, and beauty are found in lower forms in perfect performance of their simpler life processes, so in Society we find health, happiness, and beauty in proportion to our performance of these our life processes; a greater, far greater health, happiness, and beauty in the magnificent spread and range of these processes; a far more terrible record of disease, misery, and horrid ugliness as we fail of fulfilment.
A defective, sick, or dead plant is an unpleasant sight. A defective, sick, or dead animal is a more unpleasant sight. But the depth and ramifications of misery and horror in a defective, sick, or dead society,—this is what has made us call this fair world “a vale of tears.”
Such a pity, too! When it could be just as healthy as a plant or animal! It is far more fun to be an animal than a plant, more exertion and so more pleasure. And it is far more fun to be a human being than a mere individual animal, far more complicated exertion and so more pleasure. With our vastly increased capacity for happiness our misery must be accounted for by “failure to connect” with the universal energy in one or both ways. We are denied our share of stimulus, we lack social nourishment, or, worse, we are denied our right discharge, are not rightly placed in the field of social action, are not doing the work which belongs to us.
It should be noted here that the happiness of social action as beyond that of individual action increases in proportion to its collectivity. There is a larger joy in perfect “team-work” than in the best individual play. Connected as we are, the sensation that thrills through the whole audience is stronger far than what is felt by one man alone, like King Ludwig of Bavaria in the empty auditorium.
If a man is rightly placed in the world’s work, doing what he is best fitted for to the height of his best powers, and if he clearly sees that by so doing he fills his place in the universal economy perfectly, then, granting of course that he is properly nourished physically and socially, he is happy. But if he is ill-nourished he is unhappy, not power enough flowing in; if he is ill-placed in social service he is unhappy, lacking right lines of discharge, his energy banking up and pushing against right doors that don’t open, and moving very slack through wrong doors that do. Moreover, though well-nourished and well-placed, if he is hag-ridden by some ancient lie about work being a curse, a disgrace, or some such idiocy, then he is unhappy because his own mind, clogged and twisted, turns on cross-currents of pressure that spoil the smooth flow of energy.
To recapitulate:
Life is action.
Action is conscious discharge of energy.
Discharge of energy is pleasure in proportion to amount, complexity, and freedom of delivery.