On Work by Kahlil Gibran: A Review

On Work is one of the 26 poetic essays in the book The Prophet written by the Lebanese artist, philosopher and writer Khalil Gibran. The book, published in 1923, is about the prophet Almustafa, who has lived in the foreign city of Orphalese for 12 years. He was about to board a ship which will carry him home when he was stopped by a group of people with whom he discusses copious issues on life and the human condition. The Prophet is considered to be Gibran’s greatest literary work. The book has been translated into twenty different languages. The Prophet is divided into chapters dealing with love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, houses, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.

The essence of the literary piece seeks for us to step outside of our own perspective to see things in the way that life should be lived. The writer has sublimely and majestically endowed each line with the inert spirituality and wisdom that every poetic piece needs to survive. The words are so emotionally moving and passionately powerful that it tends to create a serene, delicate and beautiful feeling of one’s existence in this intricate world.

“You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.”
“When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?”

Gibran mentions of the “the earth and the soul of the earth” which pertains to the self-sustaining world that we live in. And that pace of the earth is to exist, to live and survive.
Though human endeavor will always be continually relentless in our society’s search for never-ending progress and development [“proud submission towards the infinite”], every human being must learn to live in harmony with this rhythm. The poem speaks about unity and accord, that every aspect of human labor is collective in nature. One can never achieve a goal without having the help of his peers or his co-workers. Humans are social beings attributed to its immense population and relative responsibility of sustaining the needs of its race. In order to survive, every human being must work in unanimity. In the aspect of labor, productivity depends on the harmony of social structures within a system.

“Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret
“But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.”

A common misconception of work and labour is that it is always associated with hardship and physical stress. But to the author, that misconception greatly depends on the perspective of the worker. In a spiritual sense, the author mentions of a “dream” which can be translated as “one’s purpose of existence”. He said that “if one is keeping himself with labour, then he is in truth loving life” which will therefore fulfill the “purpose of his
existence” [“fulfilling a part of earth’s furthest dream”]. Work therefore is an amount of effort applied to produce a deliverable or to accomplish a task, not a state of burden or misfortune. And when one bears fruit of his own labour then one shall acquire his own alleviation. [“the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written”]

“You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,And all work is empty save when there is love;And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.”
“And what is it to work with love?It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.”

Gibran conceivably implicated the most benign interactions of expression in this stanza where he contemplated the importance of urge, knowledge, and love in one’s work. When one works with love one attaches himself to himself, and to others, and to God. We all live in a spiritual, quasi-philosophical world that we always tend to struggle for justification for our actions. We need a source of strength for our entire physical and spiritual skirmish with life, and Gibran explains; we can achieve this if we bind our existence to ourselves, to others and to God.
The verse further explains symbolical relationships on the nature of one’s purpose of labor. That one must put all his commitment and dedication on his work as if the outcome of his physical labor; the cloth that he weaved, the house he built, the seeds he had sown and harvest, will all be for his beloved.

“Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.”

Gibran attempts to define the state of equivalence of men in all labour. “He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.” He further explained that this realization only exists “in sleep” or in a whimsical state of human thoughts, an actual misconception. He then turns to define greatness as when “one who can turn the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.” When a writer creates a masterpiece by committing himself to his work to help others to understand earns as much success as when an inventor produces a machine that alleviates the welfare of people. Work will be defined by the greatness of its worker not by its own greatness.
“Work is love made visible.And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.”
The prophet Almustafa, ends the poetic discussion on work that was started by a ploughman, by saying “Work is love made visible…” The only way to conceive and produce a good result of work or labor is when one puts his heart into it. Loving one’s work is one of the greatest contentment a human being could ever feel. No one else could define this feeling not unless he commits himself into it. By showing dedication, enthusiasm, devotion and loyalty, one’s physical work would bring peace and contentment to himself, to his family and to the people around him.
These are words to live by. Gibran’s words are refreshingly nonsectarian yet feel none the less profound, timeless, universal and relevant to all cultures, peoples and times. The profoundness of his truth is not gleaned until the words are read many times. Gibran teaches us to celebrate life no matter what the circumstance is. We need to work in order to live. And as what he said, “Work is love made visible…” just intricately suggest that to work is to love. ♣