Rainy day thoughts on work.

We're getting down to the wire on a ton of work at work.

Actually, that's not accurate.

We're way past the wire--whatever the wire is--and we're still tinkering.

We're snipping this, and changing that, and re-jiggering those.

There's a mania to it all that outsiders, people not in related industries or some kind of "arty" field would find silly.

In fact, I find it silly.

It is silly.

We are improving things, and then improving the improvements.

We are spiffing up parts on the Large Hadron Collider.

No one will ever notice what we're doing, but it's important.

We are making beautiful dovetail joints.

We are Georges Seurat laying down one more point of oil on a huge canvas.

The one that either makes "Sunday Afternoon," a masterpiece.

Or ruins it.

This isn't fun.

This isn't, probably in the large scheme of things, productive.

But it's what we do.

It's called integrity.

It's straining every muscle to go a bit faster, or jump a bit higher.

It's what we do.

Work, as Alain de Botton wrote, has pleasures and sorrows.

Sometimes they're both combined in the most minute of tasks.

Sometimes they exist side by side in the madness, chaos, frustration and frenzy of late nights and bad Chinese food.

It wasn't until Rousseau in the 18th Century that the notion of work and fulfillment and/or happiness became linked.

It's a tough concept.

And considering the history of our species, a new one.

Sometimes it's like pushing water up-hill with a sieve.

But we try.

We try to do the best job we can. We try to create something that entertains, that informs, that moves the needle for a brand. And we put our sweat and sinew and cerebellum into it.

And deal with the sorrow.

And the pleasure.

That's what we do.