The Greatest Form Of Productivity

In America, productivity in the workplace and even in free time is often regarded as morally right, receiving praise not just for the accomplishments, but also because someone chose activity over something more leisurely.  The irrationalistic worship of productivity even where it is needless, sought out to a harmful extent, or done only for the sake of emotionalism has infiltrated the worldviews of many evangelical Christians.  Inside or outside of evangelical circles, the most foundational and important kind of productivity is actually dismissed or outright opposed in spite of all this, for none but a few are rationalists.  Seeking out and relishing the necessary truths of reason can require more initial effort than almost any other endeavor because of how terrifying or foreign it can be, and it is more fundamental than physical labor because reason, which rationalistic thinking is in alignment with, is the one thing that cannot not be true.

A person could be completely physically disabled, unable to move as much as their fingers in the service of a company or even household chores, and they could participate in this greatest form of productivity: the discovery, celebration, and revisiting of logical axioms, what follows from them, and the truths they necessitate about other existents and issues.  On the level of bodily activity, especially that aimed at financial ends, they cannot be productive, but they are highly productive nonetheless.  This kind of productivity and the potential for it cannot be snatched away by anything short of the total nonexistence of the mind.  As long as a person is conscious, they are epistemologically relying on reason just as they metaphysically rely on it whether conscious or not (they could not even exist if it was not logically possible), and any willing person can at a minimum grasp the self-evident, necessary nature of axioms.

Reason is already being relied on as people labor professionally, engage in practical tasks like cooking and cleaning, or engage in miscellaneous other tasks to feel a sense of achievement, even if its inherent truth and universal scope (metaphysically and epistemologically) is unrecognized or is not being focused on.  It is possible to be philosophically alert and active on a constant basis regardless of what they are or are not doing physically.  Acting as if this is not true, there are a great many people who might mistake physical relaxation as an indicator of a lack of intellectual, psychological thriving at that very moment.  Yes, even some rationalists might appreciate periods of mental respite (though they would not likely pursue these for anything more than fairly brief respite before focusing on abstract truths once more), yet what they are doing outwardly is not what dictates or reveals this.

This is the inverse side of the idea that physical labor excludes philosophical contemplation.  Even when in the jaws of physical or mental labor in the workplace, someone can still grasp reason directly and dwell on matters simultaneously far deeper and higher than mere professional work, though it might be more difficult for some than others to do so.  Still, it does not logically follow from the absence of professional or personal labor with the body that there is not a more abstract, significant kind of productivity being pursued.  Corporate productivity pales in comparison to something as grand and deep as the laws of logic and the truths they govern about other things.  It does not matter which kind of productivity is most popular or preferred by a given person or society.  Philosophical productivity, accessible as long as a person is conscious, is the intrinsically supreme form of activity.