>Personally, I know that I need a focus for my intellectual life. It needn’t be employment, but “work” is a fair way to describe it.

Alas, alas, work has been co-opted to mean employment in most people's minds.

There's learning, there's helping, there's contributing, there are a million things that aren't idling and require effort, but net you with no money.

So they don't count as "work".