Idiom of work today is similar to torture

The little child ran up and down the beach, filling sand in his little bucket to build a castle. Every time he would get near completion, a wave would reach out and wipe all his efforts away. He would look at it and smile and then get back to it again with the same rigour. He was at it for hours, oblivious to everything else, until his parents pulled him away and left the beach. Was that work I wondered? The definition of work in physics says it is lot of work. He carried load over distance and was on the move all the time. He spent all his energy, even though, the final product was never meant to stay, and he was fully aware of it, yet he kept at it. Did he gain something out of this work or is it useless, child’s play?
I asked a businessman and he reduced it to mere ‘non-productive’ fun. Work is when you create something of ‘value’, meaning that there was no value for the child’s efforts.
It is interesting how ‘work’ has become a senseless term attached merely to a ‘value’ in terms of money or some other physical or calculable gain. For a businessman, work must be ‘productive’, implying that it must bring in more money than what was invested. “What about pleasure then?” I ask. “For that, have fun and play games.” Is cricket still a game or was it till the moneyed began putting their money in it? Do the players still play it for fun or is it the money and ‘fame’ they are ‘working’ for?
There is no greater word filled with deceit than ‘work’. Laden with the morality of ‘being productive’ (or else ‘useless’), we are made to chase money in the name of work. Isn’t it a natural instinct to work for survival? Imagine being marooned on an island. Will you not try to find or build a shelter, gather food and do whatever is required to stay alive as an instinct? And once that is done, will you not spend some energy jumping into the ocean playfully or climbing a tree or whatever catches your fancy? Decimate the artificial construct of economy, and every action required to live (not merely to exist) becomes equal in terms of value. We need it all, and each bit is as important as the other.
We have allowed ourselves to be enveloped with the well-planned and floated myth that man is lazy by nature and, therefore, needs a master to become productive. That was the justification of the slave traders of Europe. They labelled all, but the white, as lazy people and justified each and every atrocity they heaped on the so-called coloured people. After hundreds of years of injustice, slavery was abolished on paper, but in reality we are still trapped in the same philosophy. We believe in our masters and our inability to live on our own terms.
Many passionate people (take Vincent Van Gogh for example), died in penury because their work was not considered worth the money of those who were converting art into money at that time. Later, the moment someone placed a big pot of money on that earlier rejected piece, the same artist is toasted as a master in some posh party, faraway from the soul of that very man. For a master, a slave should never have time for himself or be content and happy because then, he will be able to think.
The idiom of work today is akin to torture, for until the slave breaks down, there is enough work left in him. But the child worked on his little castle for hours without the least regret. And he took back with him the smile and satisfaction of doing whatever he wanted.

(The writer is a filmmaker, traveller and doctor)