I woke up this morning with a thought. As I moved through my reading and reflection, the question of “work” returned to me with a curious urge for exploration. I found myself, as is often the case, tracing it through physics—not because I believe physics is the end-all-be-all, but because physics articulates the phenomenon of physical reality in a way that helps illuminate deeper ontological correlations.

Before entering the thought itself, I return to a premise foundational to my outlook: nothing in physical reality is literal. The phenomenon gives rise to the formula, not the other way around. Every researcher, philosopher, and physicist—from Newton to Einstein to those who brought forward the atomic bomb—began with conceptualization. Through close, dedicated observation of the phenomenon, they eventually arrived at formulas through which we now speak about objective reality. The literal is always preceded by the conceptual.

Because of this, my own conceptualizing is not abstraction for abstraction’s sake. It is an acknowledgement that all we call “literal” is conceptual at its origin. Yet, between concept and literalness lies a pitfall: ideology. The original meaning of “idea” was to observe form, to see the nature of something. When ideas become ideologies, they are encapsulated and eventually administered—like capsules, like the red and blue pill— splitting reality into polarizing choices where inquiry should have remained open and relational. What was once a space of ceaseless questioning becomes rigid and enclosed.

With this groundwork, I return to Work.

In physics, Work is defined as force times displacement, taking direction into account. But the way we have interpreted physics is also the way we have come to objectify reality. The laws of physics function as laws of objectification. They assume that physicality is inert—things that have no inherent force—and therefore require force as imposition in order to move.

This is where the heart of the matter lies: the meaning of force.

In the classical formula W = F x D, force is force as imposition. One imposes force on something assumed inert, directs it, and produces work. This logic extends far beyond mechanics. It arranges our understanding of meaningfulness. Society measures the human being by productivity, by whether one is hardworking or “lazy,” efficient or unproductive. From birth to death, one’s existence is approximated through meaningful work. Work, in this sense, becomes reality itself—because reality, as we inherit it, is structured through objectification.

The ordinary analogy clarifies this plainly. Take a wine glass. The wine glass is assumed inert. To move it from the kitchen to the living room, you impose force on it. It does not move unless you choose to move it. This very act—imposing force upon something assumed to have no inherent force—is the literal definition of objectification. And it is precisely this mechanism that, for the most part, shapes how we relate to ourselves and to one another.

When the same logic is applied to the human being, complications arise. First, we apply it to ourselves. We impose force on ourselves through choice—through mental, emotional, and psychological pushing. We create internal conditions where movement depends on imposition rather than inherent coherence. This imposition is also an authority that enforces, defines and extracts work. Many of us work in this way: through self-objectification. And inevitably, once we objectify ourselves, we extend the same logic outward—onto neighbors, colleagues, family, strangers, our entire ecosystems.

But the human being is not an object.

The essence of the human being is not an object. To look at the physical body and conclude objecthood is a surface-level understanding operating at the personality level. That superficial view is responsible for much of the conflict, separation, and suffering we generate because it is an object-based gaze. We objectify ourselves first, then project that objectification outward, reproducing the same displacement and imposition we were taught to enact internally.

There is another form of force, latent yet available to us.

If force as imposition objectifies reality, then force as expression humanizes it. Force as expression is inherent in the nature of that which moves. It arises from the coherence of essence. In this understanding, work becomes a way of being and moving in the world, divested of imposition. The formula does not change—W = F x D remains intact—but the ontological meaning of force shifts. Force becomes inherent rather than applied, expressive rather than imposed.

This distinction is lived intuitively by artists and creative people, and in a deeper way by all of us who sense the movement of expression within. Within the framework of objectified, so-called objective reality, these two modes of force—imposition and expression—often appear in tension. But there is no real conflict. They are different arrangements of the same phenomenon. One objectifies; the other humanizes.

From here, I arrive at the first premise of the ontology of relational being:

A human being is not an object, and therefore is not to be objectified.

This is the ground.

Only with this premise can we begin to see how work—central to our lives not because it is negative but because it defines and encodes movement with meaning—can be understood differently. Work will always be the bane of our lives in the sense that it is the condition of existing in a world of movement and relation. But the nature of what work is can shift. When force is no longer understood as imposition, work ceases to be a function of objectification. It becomes the expressive potential of the nature of being rather than something inflicted upon being.

Objectification has its appropriate domain. It applies to the things we give form to—objects, materials, and even thought is part of physical construct. But it cannot define the human being.

Some may now ask, “how about animals, trees, or nature?” But relational ontology must begin with the human-to-human field, because our relationship to ourselves is what projects outward. If we do not understand relational being between ourselves, we simply replicate the same objectification everywhere else.

To understand work ontologically is to understand force as expression. It is to see how we impose force on ourselves, how that imposition extends outward, and how we might instead move according to inherent coherence rather than internal objectification.

This is where I pause today and continue unfolding in the next reflection.