Different Views on and Joys in Life
By different views on life, I mean that these groups are primarily satisfied by different things, and this satisfaction is usually enough for them to keep on living. Of course there are other side things like food, love, sex, friends, etc.. But, for example, someone would only be considered a “Fan” if they enjoyed food so much that they spent much of their time learning about it or making it, enjoyed all of this, and made dealing with food a large part of their life and personality.
The Fan
The Fan is someone who is interested by and enjoys a particular thing or genre of things to an extent where it overcomes all other interests that they have. By overcome, I do not necessarily mean take precedence over, I mean that they spend more time doing / thinking about this more than anything else. So, for example, if a person is a Fan and their interest is figurines, they might spend an obsessive mount of money on them, but they won’t necessarily take away from special occasions with their family, hurt themselves financially, or begin stealing money in order to pay for it all. The Fan is satisfied by the stimulation and enjoyment that learning about a particular thing gives them. Also, the Fan generally likes to show off his or her interest. A Fan interested in Anime could buy little character figurines, posters, computer wallpapers, etc. A person may be a fan of something without being considered a “Fan”. Someone may enjoy watching sports and like a particular team, but it only pushes them towards classification of “Fan” when that person’s interest becomes a main focus of their thinking and life. The defining factor is how a person’s interest in and enjoyment of something fuels their life.
The Artisan
The Artisan is different from the Fan in one main way: The Artisan likes to make what they are interested in (whereas the Fan in content with learning about and experiencing it, not interacting with it). There a infinitely many different kinds of art, from music to bread-making. Someone may have enjoyed doodling in their notebooks in High School, but this does not make them an artisan. People that are endlessly fascinated by the art and spend much of their time thinking, talking, or making it are Artisans. An example most people are familiar with: Leonardo da Vinci, or Mozart. “Art” is a pretty loose term. Many people believe art is simply something useless in practicality that is made to show off. This can be the case, but their are many forms of art that are completely outside that description. Math is an art. Architecture is an art. Most forms of engineering are forms of art as well. An art is, generally, a design by a person. It may be created for the maker themselves, or it may be a product. The line between an Artisan and a Producer is very slim, and in many ways the two overlap. But their is a defining difference: an Artisan makes art because of their interest in the art itself, but a producer creates things (sometimes art) because of their interest in profit / production. The Artisan enjoys the intricacies or the simplicities of their art of interest. An Artisan who is a software engineer loves the intricacies of the code and also how they can be made beautifully simple. They take pleasure in playing around with unconventional ways of coding just so that they may learn and understand more about the structures and systems, and their endless interactions and possibilities. Scientists are artisans.
The Philosopher
The Philosopher takes interest in life itself and also mostly abstract thinking. As with all the other classifications, they may also be interested in art of a TV show or in being popular, but their main joy in life comes from thinking, or talking with other people. Philosophers are generally less common because it is a bitter kind of pleasure that comes from thinking and talking. Many people may enjoy philosophy, they may talk to a Philosopher or read a good book that gives them a slightly different view on their entire life, but if they themselves are not a Philosopher, they will be extremely likely not to entirely apply it, ponder it, or be affected by it significantly. If, however, that receiver is a Philosopher, they will be intrigued. They will want to read other similar books, talk about it with their friends, maybe journal about their feelings about it, blog it. Not all Philosophers are extremely social, but most are interested in the reactions of other people to their thoughts. Most Philosophers reason that they are rare in taking such an amount of joy from pondering, but they know that other perspectives, no matter how small, can still be interesting. Those Philosophers that are extremely private with their dwellings still take input. They must observe the world and other people in order to be inspired. That is not to say that all inspiration comes form the Philosopher’s eyes though, the most inspiration comes from the mind. But the mind yearns for input, and it is close to impossible for a Philosopher to resist that, unless they have other extreme factors at work. Most Philosophers are believers in what they think, for they think a lot. They do not feel as if they have impulsive thoughts that they take to heart, they decide to think and reason and research about their ideas. The Philosopher may sound like they are only an Artisan of philosophy, but there is a key difference. The Philosopher is not making science, they are using their mind as part of it. All Artisans are based in reality, there is not expression inside their mind that satisfies them. They must use the world around them. But the Philosopher takes the world around them, puts it through their mind, and feels the joy there. Art is science, and philosophy is not science (religion is philosophy, by the way). Philosophy is more than a study, philosophy is a way of life, and the way of life that the Philosopher has taken interest in. Biology is not a way of life because, although its research may give personal joy and it may effect your views on life at times, it is a science and doesn’t go beyond observation. Philosophy is beyond observation, although parts of it include it. So, a Philosopher could be considered an Artisan but also more. (Many Philosophers also become writers or other artists).
The Producer
The Producer may appear much like an Artisan, but is different in a way unlike the Philosopher. The Producer is interested in the production, profit, and advancement of themselves or their creation rather than specifically in the parts of the creation itself. A Producer that is a s software engineer may be interested in the intricacies of the art of programming and systems, but their main interest would be in how they can advance their position and produce more with the code. Producers often want power. They want and enjoy the prestige of success. They want to become bigger and more powerful. Most Artisans want simply for their work, but a Producer want for himself. He wants these things because he enjoys them, and almost necessarily, knows that he will enjoy them before achieving them. Most people would consider this sort of philosophy greedy and selfish, and some producers are. They want for themselves and feel that what they make is more than enough to repay society. But some producers also feel pride and enjoyment simply in having the power and the capacity to do as much as they do, and they want more always. They always want to advance. The difference between these “subclasses” of Producer are that one of them respects production and the other simply wants it. The latter does not care if they take it from others or if they destroy others to make themselves seem better by co mparison. But the former respects the ability of others and feels morally obligated to better them but not by attack and crime, but by competition. That is not to say that a producer is, by definition, not a criminal. Some producers may be criminals, in fact those at the extreme spectrum of this or any previous classifications may be criminals, criminal minded, or at the very least not completely “moral”. The vast majority of people are not criminals (in the eyes of the law) however. By crime I mean by stealing, claiming things that are not yours to claim. How do you gain the right to something? Through your own effort, and you receive equal to your effort. This is pretty hard to determine, and is generally at the digression of the Producer or person in the better position. However, either party in a transaction can have opinions that are influenced by facts that are not in their control, so they CAN know they are cheating and stealing under their own views of morality.
The Blue-Collar and the Community Member
As technology has advanced and increasingly allowed people to take fuller advantage of their interests, this classification has been diminishing. The Blue-Collar is someone who’s work is generally monotonous and not of their special interest, and their home life is primarily relaxation. These people are important to society for their work, and in communities they can be important filler. What are their interests? What gives them joy in life? Unlike the previously mentioned groups, they do not really have great joys either because they do not have the ability to experience them or they do not feel the motivation to. If not for this, most Blue-Collars would become Artisans or Fans. They may be, to some extent, Artisans or Fans, or even Philosophers, but they do not take it to the level necessary to reach that classification. In general, they prefer relaxation. This may be because their work is very tiring or they have children that need constant attending, or a large number of other possible and reasonable explanations. But the fact is that in the huge majority of cases, the Blue-Collar could achieve the intrinsic motivation of joy if they were to pass a threshold of exposure to their interest. But they do not, they do not have the chance of the motivation to go that far. This threshold is different for everyone, and may very likely be higher for most Blue-Collars that do not turn. A Community Member is almost always a Blue-Collar as well. The definitions of a Community Member are essentially the other half to a Blue-Collar’s life, it is their interaction in the community. There is a spectrum of how much of a Community Member someone is; someone may be passively social and have a few good friends (at one end), or they may be the head of a couple groups and be friends with everyone, having no close friends (at the other end). Most people have private lives, but extreme Community Members may not sometimes (these are generally the only kind of people where that is at all probable). There are different mixes of sociality and close friends and public leadership, but there are general trends. People that are friends with a lot of people tend to be less close to their friends, and people that have few friends tend to be closer with them. In work and at home, the Community Member is part of the community (of course). Imagine a classic sitcom or a community from the South, these are good examples of pure Community Membership. Except the personalities of specific people may be their only defining factors as people, they do not go in any direction to the extent to become any of the classifications mentioned here besides Blue-Collar and Community Member. Going back to the backing behind these classifications, I am separating people here based on their view of and joy in life. The Blue-Collar is a colorless person, they are just not enough of anything. The Community Member, in a lesser extent, is a normal Blue-Collar. To much more of an extent, the Community Member gets joy from their membership, and they view life in the main context of their community. The huge people are Community Members to an extent, but when a Community Member is not any of the other classifications other than Blue-Collar, it becomes their main joy and perspective. Their thoughts and feelings and endeavors to the community or their fitting into the community supersede in time and effort any other interest they have. That is the different between a Community Member that is a Blue-Collar and a Community Member that is anything else. The Blue-Collar has nothing else, so they are driven primarily that way, but someone who is one of the other classifications is not primarily driven by their membership, although they most likely conform to it a lot.
