Jan 25 (edited) • General discussion
The irony of decontextualized “work”
There’s a new fitness competition making the rounds called Farm Games. The idea is to make training “functional” again by simulating manual labor: carrying awkward loads, dragging heavy objects, doing work that looks like real life.
I’ve seen this coming for several years. The irony is hard to miss. If you want the benefits of manual labor, the most obvious thing to do is simply to do manual labor. Help someone move. Stack wood. Dig, carry, build, repair. Those activities already exist, and they already carry practical usefulness.
What’s missing isn’t function—it’s context.
When movement is cut off from real need, it has to be theatrical to feel meaningful. We recreate work instead of doing work! We simulate necessity. The body works hard, but the effort is unanchored to purpose.
This is what disconnection from meaning looks like. Not laziness, but misdirection. A lot of energy spent on things that don’t actually need doing.
Movement was never meant to be impressive. It was meant to participate in something larger than itself. When effort serves no one and builds nothing, it slowly hollows out, even though it may be physically demanding.
Re-enchantment doesn’t come from making workouts look more “real,” (And, therefore ironically comical), but rather by restoring the link between effort and consequence.
The body doesn’t need better simulations.
It needs a reason to show up.
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The irony of decontextualized “work”
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