Misery is a Self-inflicted Wound

And the serenity of manual labor

Apr 30, 2024

Vaporous exhalations of horse. PC: NETTEX

I used to shovel horse manure for $6 an hour under the table. This was my chosen profession throughout middle and high school, among other manual labor jobs.

Each horse stall had finely ground wood dust as bedding for the horses. It’s softer on their hooves and more comfortable to lay down on than the packed dirt beneath. The wood dust smells earthy and wholesome. It is also excellent for saturating urine, turning the dust into hardened clumps that settle onto the pitchfork and make a satisfying thunk when it lands in the wheelbarrow.

It was my job to use a pitch fork to find the urine clumps and hunks of dung and toss them into a wheelbarrow. I derived a deeply calming pleasure in sifting the dust for each and every morsel of horse dung, even the pieces that were broken into many smaller shards beneath some carefree hoof; it required a “sense” of the pitchfork, an element of mastery not easily earned. Once the tiny shard of excrement was balanced precariously on one of the thin arms of the pitchfork, I would execute a deft flick of the wrist, launching the morsel to where I knew the wheelbarrow was sitting six or seven feet behind me. I would then turn and watch the shard’s journey as it soared through space, only to land in the precise spot of the wheelbarrow I visualized in my mind’s eye beforehand. Stab, sift, balance, flick… nailed it. The horse would look on with bored eyes. I would then wheel the barrow up a worn slope of years’ worth of hardened horse manure only to dump the load off a small ledge into a ditch, which after a few years would turn into black gold for some gardener to fertilize his melons and sweet potatoes and peppers with.

The thought never occurred to me that this job was demeaning, or lowly, or servile, or embarrassing. I never really thought that I needed to find some higher status job as a sixteen year old. Was I a loser? Did I have low expectations? Looking back, I don’t think either were true. I simply found some serenity in it.

There were, however, those who did not enjoy this profession and who quit in dramatic fashion; they were aggrieved, and they were, frankly, disgusted at the thought of performing such labor. Let us conduct a philosophical exorcism of the sort ancient philosophers once performed, and prop up one of the aggrieved as a counter example to unearth a few Stoic principles.

What would have happened had I followed one of the aggrieved the day he quit and threw his pitchfork to the ground, saying something to the effect of, “I deserve more pay. No one should have to shovel waste this early and in this cold. Especially not me.” If I broke my pitchfork over my knee and adopted that sort of mindset, it’s unlikely that had I been given $350,000 a year to do nothing but lay on a beach in the Bahamas that I would have found any more satisfaction than I did in that twenty five degree barn at 5am. I probably would’ve have found fault with something even while lying there on the beach, shaking my fist when a cloud blocks the sun, mumbling “I deserve better than this,” or, “God, why do you hound me everywhere I go?” And what about when a hurricane comes along and my posh villa is flattened, and when I’m bending over to pick up the shards I suffer a heart attack because I wasn’t handed the benefits of hill sprints and spinach along with that wealth? Would I also want to be handed the self-discipline to control what my hand puts in my mouth on top of the $350,000? Why not demand immortality as well?

What the aggrieved soul was saying was this: “If I keep trying to get what is outside of my control, then eventually I’ll be happy.” This is insanity. Happiness cannot exist in the future because the future doesn’t exist – all that will ever exist is the present moment. It was shoveling horse waste – it wasn’t becoming a liar or contracting some terrible disease. It was merely a task that needed doing, and a task that had its virtues, like the mesmerizing back and forth sway the body glides into as it merges with the pitchfork, and as we step forward with a dig and step backward with a flick, and lean in with an inhale and lean back with an exhale.

It was also the task that had been given at that moment in time. Why would it not be the case that the manner in which manure is pitched determines the future value of the pitcher? When the aggrieved – a human being, an adult, a man – was shoveling horse dung half-committed, half-mindful, and half-caring, did he really think that he would all of a sudden give a damn and engage his mind when the new task set before him would be to lead troops in war, work three jobs to raise a child, or weigh the scales as a judge in court? What evidence of his self-command would exist, or his discipline, or his acceptance of the cosmic string of causes and effects governed entirely by nature that places us here, and then there, and leaves it up to us whether we inject purpose into that moment or suck the life out of it?

Projecting our examination into the future, what would he want to tell his grandchildren someday? Would he want to say that he had a manual labor job, he was wretched at it, and that he quit within the first two hours? What’s more useful to teach them? Restlessly craving more cash and status, or remembering that this moment is all there is, and that it’s enough, and that we have this godlike capacity to take our negative judgment within our hands and say to it, “Come here, judgment, and let me see what you are and if you are good or evil, beautiful or ugly, true or false.” Or is there another tale he would want to weave as he seeks to shape their character?

If we can find work that satisfies our interests and salary expectations, then we should. That’s not the issue at hand. The issue in the case of the aggrieved wasn’t miserable work, work which devotees of muscular labor have found enjoyable in its purity ever since we spawned the capacity to consciously appraise the various uses of our time – it was the misery he carried around inside of himself. The discontent. The wretchedness that results when we expect the unfolding of life’s events to happen exactly as we dream them only for our dreams to be broken by reality.

If you, or I, or anyone walks out of those barn doors muttering and shaking our head, and find ourselves miserable driving away, and miserable at home, and miserable at our next job, why would we not ask ourselves, “What would Epictetus say?” We know what he would say: “Has someone made smoke in this house? If he has made a moderate amount of smoke, I will stay; if too much, I will go outside. For we must remember and hold fast to this – that the door stands open.” [1.25.17-18]

I don’t see smoke. You don’t see smoke. The smoke he’s talking about is inside of our head. We choose to make clear cold mornings into a hell of our own creation. We choose to make the frost on the branches and the vaporous exhalations of the horses that twist and curl up towards the sky into something ugly.

We have three choices.

We can walk through that door, leave the smoky house behind, and attain peace.

We can choose to stay and be miserable, walking around all torn up inside while expecting the cosmos to roll out the red carpet before us, and for men and women and children across the globe to bow in supplication as we stride across the earth exalting in our greatness.

Or we can choose to stay and find a bit of serenity in every circumstance we find ourselves in because we are, in truth, here by choice.