Current culture seems to present everything in a superficial way and neglects important virtues like the dignity of work.  We live in the most prosperous, fairest, most technologically advanced civilization yet we’re experiencing a crisis of meaning.  A young woman, Tara Condell, recently killed herself in a high profile suicide because she had a fundamentally false view of life which I explain here. In her suicide note she wrote:

I have accepted hope is nothing more than delayed disappointment […] I often felt detached while in a room full of my favorite people; I also felt absolutely nothing during what should have been the happiest and darkest times in my life.

The tragedy of Tara’s suicide isn’t an isolated event.  Opioid addiction and suicide are on the rise.  Our culture – although rich in material wealth, can seem bankrupt of meaning and purpose as I explain in my essay on happiness.  Sandy Gray understood something that could’ve saved Tara’s life, and he died for his beliefs.

The Dignity of Work

My home improvement escapades make an apt metaphor for what I’m trying to say.  We bought a new-ish home in a big city.  When we were looking at the house, everything seemed great.  Good commute, close to great urban culture, granite counter tops in the kitchen, fancy tile and big bathtub/shower combination in the master bathroom, etc.  We got everything an affluent young couple could want.

Overall, it is a good house.  But a few things are missing, like a garden hose spigot.  That created a lot of drama when we had our home painted because there was no source of water for pressure washing.  So, I decided to install one myself before we hired someone to stain the deck.

My Great Privilege to Understand the Dignity of Work

Coming from a long line of poor rural Southerners no one ever gave me money.  And I certainly didn’t inherit status.  Popular culture has always looked down on people from the South.  But, I did inherit a spirit of rugged individuality and self-sufficiency.   My grandfather was a plumber.  He taught my father plumbing, and my father taught me.  Let’s just say, that anyone who believes in white privilege doesn’t know people like my family.  I was the first one in my father’s family to go to college.  And I’m the only one in my generation to do so.  In fact, many more of my relatives went to jail or spend their lives in the hell of opioid addiction. I think some people conflate white privilege with Elitist Privilege.  But, white privilege is just racism.  Judging anyone just by the color or their skin is racism.

In any event, I decided to save a thousand bucks and install the spigot myself.  Plumbing isn’t heavy work, and it’s not typically a lot of work.  But, it is precise work.  If you screw it up you’ll end up with a mess and a lot of damage.  Water flooding everywhere will ruin just about anything.

So, I rolled up my sleeves and unplugged from my marathon of intellectual podcasts to listen to some music and focus on the job.  Plumbing requires precision.  Precision requires attention.

Crawling under the house I immediately noticed that the insulation wasn’t done properly.  You’re supposed to staple insulation to wood.  But, they’d just shoved it up under the floor joists without proper support, so it’s falling everywhere.  I navigated to the water shut off valve, and my frustration increased as I noticed other careless work.  The water shutoff valve and the pressure reducing valve on the main water supply were just dangling unsupported. That’s a plumbing disaster waiting to happen.  CPVC plumbing pipe becomes brittle with age (which is fine if properly supported). That pipe would certainly burst and flood everything eventually if I hadn’t fixed it.

Empty Superficiality Dominates Modern Culture

Like so many things in our society, much effort goes into making things look good, but scratch the surface, and you find just another fake.  Many people lack regard for once esteemed virtues like the dignity of work. Essential things aren’t always easy to see. The most important things are substantive and eternal, but often elusive in a way that understanding of them only comes with the wisdom of years.

This emphasis on superficial appearance seems mistaken to me. Thoreau sums it up in Walden using the metaphor of clothing:

A man who has at length found something to do will not need to get a new suit to do it in; for him the old will do, that has lain dusty in the garret for an indeterminate period. Old shoes will serve a hero longer than they have served his valet — if a hero ever has a valet — bare feet are older than shoes, and he can make them do. Only they who go to soires and legislative balls must have new coats, coats to change as often as the man changes in them. But if my jacket and trousers, my hat and shoes, are fit to worship God in, they will do; will they not? …

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes [emphasis added is mine]. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes. All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, …

Finishing the Job

But, to get back to my story. I measured carefully, cut pipe, and screwed together while inwardly bemoaning the poor job done by some others.  So many things are like that. It’s not isolated to construction.  The open-source programming code, Beautiful Soup, which reads HTML code is hosted on a web page called Crummy.Com because so much HTML is poor quality.

The inner satisfaction and feeling of accomplishment after doing good work is more important than momentary click-bait attention and ‘likes’ on social media. A job well done says something about you and who you are as a person.  Do you have the kind of pride and integrity to do a good job even when no one’s looking? American history is the history of work, a history of building something great.  A history of setting off into the unknown.  Americans were once  a brave and confident people willing to undergo bitter hardship in the pursuit of a better life.  To me, the statue of Liberty represents the courage in your conviction to higher ideals, a chance to achieve self-worth and prosperity despite the odds, to leave everything behind for adventure and glory by setting off into the unknown.  And it’s a noble, great tradition that I believe is being lost.

Thinking of all this while doing plumbing – the ballad of Sandy Gray popped up on my Spotify stream. A true story, Sandy Gray exemplifies the dignity of work and what a real hero is supposed to be.  This story was handed down across generations in the folk music tradition.  Listen to this song, Breakfast in Hell, and pay attention to the words.

To summarize, Sandy Gray was a pioneer, a lumberjack who died trying to undo a log jam so his team could float the wood downstream to be sold.  Like Tara Condell, he died young.  But, what a death!

Hollywood Heros and Culture are Fake

Sandy Gray had a great adventure. He explored wild places where no one else had been before.  He experienced profound comradery and deep friendships along with great dignity of work.

Compare Sandy Gray to popular stories of heroism like Deadpool 2 in this scene.

Confidence in yourself,  your life’s adventure, your work, and your purpose fills the emptiness inside.

Real heroes like Sandy Gray take on challenges bigger than themselves and give it everything they’ve got, up to and including their life.  Fake heroes like Deadpool whine like bitches and complain that they can’t measure up and don’t even want to try.

Real heroes like Sandy Gray bring out the best in themselves and others – exhorting others to be courageous and push themselves to accomplish more than they ever thought they could.  Hollywood believes uttering empty virtue signaling platitudes, like Deadpool making racist jokes about white people, make you a good person.

Real people know that the only thing that makes you a good person is actually being a good person.  You can’t fake your way into being someone you’re not. We know that fake virtue signaling garbage from Hollywood is nothing more than hot air.  I regret that Tara Condell didn’t live long enough to understand the wisdom in the Ballad of Sandy Gray, the value in the dignity of work, and the virtues of a real hero.

What do you think?

Thanks for reading to the end! This blog is my project in the pursuit of truth. I spend dozens of hours researching each blog post, so I hope you found something useful.

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