The work can really suck you in, simply as a paper shredder seizes upon paper and pulls it through its razor rollers. An old and large building can continuously pull labor into it, as the trauma caused by tearing through walls, ceilings, and floors, and sawing old pipe and soldering new pipe in, and draining plumbing systems and then recharging them, can finally rupture long-running weaknesses and vulnerabilities in aging infrastructure, and the building, full of paying occupants, seemingly cries out for attention itself.
Juxtapose such a state of affairs with a creaky and unstable economy, with its extremely loose and exploited labor markets, and its pathological drive for total efficiency and slashed labor, and you get a pattern in which daily labor is intensive, frenetic, and mind numbing, and then suddenly slacks off for given periods, which with fewer and larger operating businesses and the dearth of job opportunity, produces a climate of white knuckled desperation and the chasing of work wherever it appears, work that is everywhere forced into necessity for its own sake, at least wherever there is energy and resources available to produce it.
For obvious reasons, this culture has fixed a limited idea of labor and then elevated it to sublime and sacred heights in the moral imagination. No doubt, it takes hard work in many forms to produce most of what is worthwhile in this world. But as Thoreau pointed out in an oft-ignored throwaway comment, it is very true that hard work leads to hard eating, and for that matter it leads to hard resting as well.
Amid the frenzied pace of daily work, it is all too easy to spring for high calorie fast food or ready made food, and consume a constant supply of meat and carbs, which in its lower quality forms come chock full of various preservatives, toxins, and engineering. It is all very satisfying in the midst of a hard day - especially as one's stomach fills up with a bacterial ecosystem that, in the interest of perpetuating itself, sends signals of hunger and craving for more of its kind, signals that are irresistible upon being layered over the body's necessary cravings as it undergoes intensive workout.
Where there is not simply an abundance of fresh food by necessity and cultural custom, it takes willpower to eat well, especially as one must focus and discriminate, and most importantly, pay premium prices and take the time to prepare it.
When one rests, the mind wants to shut off completely and hibernate, indulging in sustained streams of media and sinking deeper into sinks of time and attention. This regime is hard on the body and mind, and of course the hard labor that necessitates it produces more of it and it becomes the cultural and economic standard.
