In Wim Wenders latest film Perfect Days, full of zen shots of wind in the trees and dawn against the Tokyo skyline, the protagonist is a cleaner of public toilets. And not just any cleaner: probably the most conscientious cleaner employed by the city. He gets up before dawn, rolls up his futon bed, drives to one of the public toilets, and scrubs, mops, disinfects all day with great skill and dedication. After work he bicycles to a public bath, and then to the same noodle place for dinner. Home, in bed, he reads. The job suits him. It’s a matter of principle to do the job well, whatever the job, is what he would say if anyone asked. (There is little dialogue in the film.) There’s a back story there that we never learn: his much wealthier sister arrives in a shiny car to collect the runaway teen daughter and asks him in disbelief, “Is it true, that you clean toilets?” But Hirayama (played by Koji Yakusho with a twinkle in the eye) is not unhappy. There are hints that loneliness might be weighing on him as the only complication in his sensibly-led life—but also a development near the end that may resolve that issue.
What a great post and subject, thank you. Did I tell you I saw David Sedaris live in London? For free, too! I love his writing. It’s funny because my failure at having any sort of career has been on my mind a lot, more than usual because of the General Election, which will be won by Labour - that’s certain, the only question is just hiw big the win is going to be. And one point of their manifesto is to get at least some of the 11 million people aged 16-55 who are “economically inactive” back to work. As one of those people, I’m rather curious how they’re going to achieve it, and very much expect them to fail to stick to the promise those jobs will be good, with decent pay. I’d like to know how they are planning to reign in the rampant ageism and prejudice against people, mainly women, who have been out of the job market for extended periods, but I doubt I would get satisfactory answers.
Two things will need to happen: expanding possibilities of re-training and change of career past the age of 40 (more and more of us will need this), and attack on agism in hiring, the last acceptable prejudice. Latter will be harder to tackle.
Love this post a lot! Your writing gave me directions of what I was feeling about the work but can't quite describe. You're very on point on so many issues that I was feeling and experiencing in life in Canada. Thank you so much for such an inspiring post!
What a great post and subject, thank you. Did I tell you I saw David Sedaris live in London? For free, too! I love his writing. It’s funny because my failure at having any sort of career has been on my mind a lot, more than usual because of the General Election, which will be won by Labour - that’s certain, the only question is just hiw big the win is going to be. And one point of their manifesto is to get at least some of the 11 million people aged 16-55 who are “economically inactive” back to work. As one of those people, I’m rather curious how they’re going to achieve it, and very much expect them to fail to stick to the promise those jobs will be good, with decent pay. I’d like to know how they are planning to reign in the rampant ageism and prejudice against people, mainly women, who have been out of the job market for extended periods, but I doubt I would get satisfactory answers.
Looking forward to another post on work!
Two things will need to happen: expanding possibilities of re-training and change of career past the age of 40 (more and more of us will need this), and attack on agism in hiring, the last acceptable prejudice. Latter will be harder to tackle.
Love this post a lot! Your writing gave me directions of what I was feeling about the work but can't quite describe. You're very on point on so many issues that I was feeling and experiencing in life in Canada. Thank you so much for such an inspiring post!
Have much respect for Crawford. Here he was on The Agenda https://www.tvo.org/video/matthew-crawford-in-defence-of-manual-work
terrific
Superb post. Hoping there's more coming along these lines!
Have you read Scott Cutler Shershow's The Work and the Gift (University of Chicago Press, 2005)? It might be of interest.
No, I'll check it out