I'd say that to the extent that you're doing it only because you want the results, it's work to that extent. If you'd miss nothing about the activity were the results handed to you, it's pure work. If you'd miss certain aspects of it but not others, it's partially work. If you'd miss the whole thing, it's not work at all.
There are certainly perplexing boundary cases like deciding in retrospect that something that "seemed like work at the time" really wasn't, or vice versa.
Cooking is a funny one for me, in that I sometimes enjoy the experience, and sometimes merely the results, but I'm also aware that if I spend long enough away from it I suffer emotionally. Which to my mind makes it two kinds of work - one gustatory, one therapeutic - as well as, in some aspects, play.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 09:00 pm (UTC)I'd say that to the extent that you're doing it only because you want the results, it's work to that extent. If you'd miss nothing about the activity were the results handed to you, it's pure work. If you'd miss certain aspects of it but not others, it's partially work. If you'd miss the whole thing, it's not work at all.
There are certainly perplexing boundary cases like deciding in retrospect that something that "seemed like work at the time" really wasn't, or vice versa.
Cooking is a funny one for me, in that I sometimes enjoy the experience, and sometimes merely the results, but I'm also aware that if I spend long enough away from it I suffer emotionally. Which to my mind makes it two kinds of work - one gustatory, one therapeutic - as well as, in some aspects, play.