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Peter wrote: >Nor are all the activities we >would not describe as 'work' not visible manifestations of love. (For >example, taking my wife out for a surprise meal isn't work, but is an >act of love.) Taking your wife out for a meal _is_ work. Is it only women who talk of "working" at a relationship? Perhaps I've made a tacit distinction between "work" and "job", one having several dimensions, the other just an economic contract in a world which contains bosses and exploited labour. There are lots of shadings of that. (Actors will often talk about another "job", for example, which has nothing to do with their "work", the serious business of their art - is this only a theatrical usage? And it's entirely possible to love your job.) I've done lots of jobs for money, but I don't think of them as my "work". Why does "work" equate with joylessness? I was born beetlebrowed, I can't help that - but I can't work out how it's possible to experience joy without admitting its negative aspects, the possibility of loss, grief, mortality; it's like being half alive. And I'm never happier than when I'm working hard... (except when it's going badly, and then I'm miserable). Re Erminia's statement about the corruption of being professional: Shakespeare was a professional writer. With a "career". He received 33 guineas for a play, if I remember rightly, a lot of money in those days; and he owned a theatre. And I like the word "amateur", because it foregrounds love. But these distinctions seem rather extrinsic to me; there's no inherent virtue either way. There's certainly no virtue in poverty. I like to be paid for my work (which is where this started). Though I'll do it whether I'm paid or not. Why? Stuffed if I know. Ionesco calls it a "mental necessity"; that will do me. Cheers A %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%