Re:Work/life balance should be difficult
by ravitation on Wednesday December 15, 2021 @03:19PM
(#29571100)
You're right. This is clear had I actually noted that disclaimer, and was simply an oversight on my part.
With that in mind, I'll just agree with your analysis, redefining "work" to include "non-employment" is detrimental to the conversation. When people discuss work/life balance (i.e. in the original article), they are (almost universally) not talking about balancing intellectually stimulating hobbies and the rest of life. We are, from the onset, talking about jobs, i.e. employment.
Additionally, I think my original comment is still useful when discussing the more common definition of work.
Your reply is entirely reasonable but it seems the gp already covered what you wrote and anticipated it in his disclaimer: ">It needn’t be employment,[...]"
He just happened to use the imprecise label "work" -- which is so tainted and overloaded that one can't re-use that word to also describe "non-employment intellectual activity" because it inadvertently tricks people into talking past each other.
(E.g. Notice that you used "work" as synonym for "employment" but the gp did not.)