Despite their general indigence, my boarders have begun to do some minor tasks around the house (e.g. clear their dishes and feed the cats); they are participants in the work-life of the household. I’ve recently realized I know or have met several people who choose not to work in a traditional sense as adults, my thinking about this has evolved recently.
I drove to a town in New York to fetch a friend I hadn’t seen in a while. Along the way I picked up a hitchhiker. He had a banjo, a large backpack and didn’t look like he showered too often. These data made me think he was safe: I assume that people who actually look like they’re hitchhiking probably don’t intend to kill or rob me (N.B. I was along; I would never pick up a stranger if someone in my family were in the car).
This guy had been “travelling” for at least 8 months and he was heading to Albany to see a friend. After Albany he was planning to head to Florida or Washington State. I do wish he had added California and Maine to get the full compass rose. He told me that he doesn’t usually ride in cars, he catches rides on freight trains and described himself as a hobo. The friend who I fetched also doesn’t work in a traditional sense, but isn’t a hobo: he’s a musician, there’s a difference.
According to the linguist Anatoly Liberman writing in the Oxford University Press blog, a hobo is an itinerant worker. Prof. Liberman continues by quoting the 1893 Standard English Dictionary a hobo is “An idle, shiftless wandering workman, ranking scarcely above the tramp.” A tramp only works when forced to and a bum doesn’t work. By this definition I don’t think my hitchhiker was a hobo. I believe he was a vagabond. But I guess English is a living language.
The development of agriculture essentially invented work (c.f. Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael). Instead of collecting our food each day and in turn becoming food for predators, we invented things to do beyond the necessities of life. Some politicians would describe my friend the hobo as a parasite: he doesn’t produce he just takes. I’d argue this is a better description of the money-changers who specialize in derivative trading. A hobo is more of a commensalist because he does no harm to the greater organism.
At the moment my garden is host to many parasites: striped cucumber beetles, Mexican bean beetles, corn borers, and squash bugs. I kill many of these, but they also provide lots of food for toads, bats and ladybugs. Sure I hate them, but the word “parasite” implies an organism that gives nothing in return. All of these pests provide food for others, without them the birds, snakes and toads wouldn’t make it. Without mushrooms nutrients would get locked up in woody debris forever. The mushrooms and garden pests are just liberating nutrients for other organisms. It might even be argued that this is most of what all of us, even hobos, accomplish in life: we liberate nutrients for other organisms, then we die.
