What's the Word for Our "Work?"

Activist Steve Schear searches for definition

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter — it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning — Mark Twain

By Steve Schear

“These days,” I told my friend Karolina, “I am spending most of my time in meetings, writing or editing other people’s writing.” We were talking in Spanish.  I was explaining my political work.

Ah, she responded, Trabajando.  Working.

“No, I don’t think of it as working,” I told her.  “It doesn’t feel like work.”

Ah, she said. Un hobby.  

“No, it’s not a hobby either.”   Would “avocation” fit? I wondered.  But that didn’t seem quite right either. Not central enough to my life.  Then Karolina offered a word I could not understand.  Panatism?

No, she said, repeating the word with more emphasis. Panaticism? I asked. No. She said the word again.

“Con un fe o con un pe?” I asked.  Un fe, she told me.

“Fanacism?”

No.  

“Escriberle, por favor,” I said. “Please write it.”  She sent the word in a message on What’s App.

“Fanaticism?” I laughed. “I don’t think so.”  Are we activists really “fanatics?” I dug deeper.

I suggested “patriotism,” but that didn’t seem right either.  My work is more about saving the planet and democracy than just protecting our country. Puzzled, I looked up “avocation.” Google offered another search possibility.

I clicked.

“Definitions: A vocation is the work you do because you have to; an avocation is what you do for pleasure, not pay.”

Okay, so “vocation” seemed like a good fit, but the problem with “vocation” is that there are no related words to go with it, unless we invent them. Would vocationers go off to vocate in Arizona, or Ohio, or other places I’ve worked? And how much would vocationers enjoy their vocationing?

Thousands of us are now spending a large part of our lives as activists in the pro-democracy movement, all of us together resisting Trump and MAGA. Organizing, writing letters and newsletters, postcarding, calling, canvassing, making videos and podcasts, and talking to friends and neighbors.  Work? Hobby? Vocation? Avocation?

So my question, dear readers, is whether there is a word for what we are doing? “Labor of Love” comes to mind, but that’s three words. Do you have a word you can recommend or invent?

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