SO many people of my generation (the 40-pluses) are utterly fed up with the world of work – regular, paid, five-days-a-week work, that is.
Their jobs bore them and tire them out. Their jobs keep them away from their families. They hate their jobs.
Such people are termed 'middle-escents' – i.e. a middle-aged adolescents who find almost everything about modern life boring and irrelevant, and work especially so.
The only thing they want to do, in relation to the structures of work and civic life which surround them, is sneer and take the p***.

This is an amusing trend to discover in middle-aged people. The condition is more than old-fashioned world-weariness or plain cynicism.
There is humour in it, albeit of a rather negative sort, and also the condition tells us something really quite important about the way we live in the West.
You see, when the realisation dawns that the world of man is essentially absurd you can gain a perspective which can be quite liberating.
Perhaps the world of work, which takes up so much of our time and thoughts, has become for many the most ridiculous aspect of modern life altogether.
I think all who have been in regular employment realise this on a quite profound level.
You hear so many people these days who will tell you they find the daily grind of working nine-till-five a pain in the backside as well as unproductive, unrewarding and pointless.
The trouble is most people have rent or mortgage commitments to meet, and lots of other expensive ‘needs’ too, so they go to work.
There is an alternative. You can give up work, or start doing things that will get you the sack (which certainly could be fun) and then, eventually, you could sign on for state benefits.
However, meagre state benefits won’t give anyone a particularly pleasant quality of life, despite the undoubtedly pleasurable side-effect of not having to go in to some boring workplace five-days-a-week and spend time with people you simply cannot stand – as seems to be the case for many folk.
Also, not having any work to do at all can very quickly make you depressed. Then again, so can full-time employment!
If you work in an office, the petty, personal politics can drive you mad.
Think of all those pathetic people who indulge in that lowest form of human activity, sucking up to bosses. Urgh. Pass me the sick bag.
Then think about all those tragic meetings-junkies who are forever banging on about “pushing the envelope”, “thinking outside the box”, “liaising with stake-holders” and “encouraging ownership of the project”.
All of that stuff is complete and utter horse manure, of course.
However, a good columnist / blogger should never really moan about the state of contemporary life without suggesting how things could be improved.
So here goes. I believe the State should act to drastically reduce the hours people are allowed to spend at work in a week. I would like the limit set at 20 hours.
That might seem a drastic curtailment but just think about how truly awful is the way we live and work and how very bad it is for the environment.
We have got the life-work balance terribly wrong. We in the West are way too busy toiling and spinning, making and consuming.
We need to be forced to slow down. We need time to think and be creative.
If we don’t stop living, working and consuming as ferociously as we do, then the social problems will continue to pile up and the climate will continue to heat up.
And then we will all be left sitting, exasperated, sweating and hating each other, on humanity’s handcart bound for hell.

*** As an antidote to all the cynicism and negativity that abounds, I finish this posting with a poem. A simply few words from the heart. Ahh…
Not my heart you understand (that barnacled old canker), but the heart of Eamonn Lairyshirts, a regular in Hell’s Waiting Room, New Brighton.
He is an admirer, as are many in that pub, of a certain Stella Feathercut, she of the flying rock-chick tresses.
You should see her move on the dance floor of The Lost Weekend late bar.
Anyway, Eamonn wrote of Stella: “I know a woman who has hair like a lion and red, juicy lips. / She is like a sister to me and I love her to bits. / She always gives you a big hug when she sees you, / Which is very nice.”

*** Also, I meant to tell you about my trip to Edinburgh during the last weekend of the festival fringe. But it will have to wait until the next posting ... if I haven’t died by then from profound corrosion of the soul.

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