"Our Lives Are Shaped By What We Love"

Monday evening is the time of the week that this blog is devoted to a contemplation of employment. The idea is that one is still somewhat fresh from the weekend and can see the horror of the job with clear eyes.

I knew it was going to be a rough one. I had stacked running days over the weekend, going out both Saturday and Sunday. And this usually means that I am wiped out Monday morning. And such was the case today.

What kept me on track, what kept hope alive, was the thought that once I got home I would eat one of the peaches that have been ripening on my kitchen windowsill.

Mission accomplished. The peach was delicious.

Who are we? We are names on bills sent to street addresses. We are rats in the race. Most of us work all our lives, and in the end we have nothing. No one wants us anymore. We are juiced out. All those years of work and not even a defined-benefit pension to show for it. No, it's a gritty game of survival, and one that has become demonstrably more difficult since I started thirty years ago.

The only thing to do is keep moving and stay busy. It sounds like advice straight out of Pollyanna's mouth. And I wish had something better to peddle here, but I don't. Keeping on the move and the mind focused generally works.

This weekend -- this is how I like to conclude my tired thoughts about the job, talking about what I listened to over the weekend -- I immersed myself in Our Lives Are Shaped By What We Love: Motown’s Mowest Story 1971-1973 put out by Light In The Attic Records. Barry Gordy Jr. tried to make it on the West Coast by launching the Mowest label in the early 1970s. It only survived a couple of years.

I particularly enjoyed the tracks by Odyssey. Here's their "Our Lives Are Shaped By What We Love":

Another tasty cut -- the rhythm section cooks -- is "The Night" by Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons: