Work!

   What are humans for? Why are we in this world? Some might say to enjoy ourselves and live life as it were the last day and all that nonsense. I don't really believe in all this. My answer is: to work. And to work hard. Without any work, your life would be nonexistent. In fact, the human race would be long gone if they hadn't done any efforts. 


After reading the first paragraph, many of you will think I'm not thinking right. But stop and reflect on this thought. How did the world we know today come to be? How did all these things appear? The answer is from restless hours of hard work. The first humans to ever live on Earth, or at least the creatures at the bottom of the evolutionary chain we are in, didn't lie around and scratch their heads until food or shelter dropped from the sky. They went out and with a big effort, they got all of this in order to survive. We do the same today. We work hard for what we want and hopefully most of us don't rest until we get it. We are taught to do this since we are children, and the ones who don't do this are called spoiled and are not very well accepted into society.


   This topic is shown in Candide when Candide and Martin reach Count Pococurante's palace in Venice. Voltaire describes his palace as a very elegant, rich and majestic place to live, a palace where everyone only wishes to live at in their wildest dreams. But the Count sees it as dull and uneventful. Even though he owns some of the most expensive things in the world, he is not even satisfied with it. He describes the Rafael masterpieces he owns:

The color is altogether dull, and there is not enough modeling in the figures, which do not stand out sufficiently. (119)

   This man is an example of many things that Voltaire thinks that are wrong in this world, like materialistic happiness, aristocratic domination, etc. But I relate this with work. The Count most likely never worked for the money with which he paid for all of this. Therefore, he never really enjoys it. This is why work is so important for the human spirit. It gives men motivation and  pride to show that they are competent and are able to accomplish great things. I believe that this feature is deeply embedded in the human brain, and is one of the main reason besides necessity that we are what we are right now, a civilization so advanced and technological.