No victory

I am reading a new book, actually, it's an old one from Murakami. The protagonist (he has no name) is stuck in a world - The Town - created by the deepest part of his consciousness. I am still having some trouble conceptualizing the whole idea, but it's an interesting one nonetheless. In this world of his, people no longer have 'selves' or 'minds', as defined by "The cognitive system arising from the aggregate memories of the individual's past experiences." In this way, people in The Town have no memories, no internal conflicts, no property, no rank, no money; there is no hate or love, nobody complains, worries, everyone is equal, and there is no growing old, no fear of death. There is a scene in which some people of The Town are digging huge holes in the ground all day, for no apparent reason. It turns out that they do it just for the sake of digging holes, they don't plan on putting anything in those holes. Work for the sake of work, because they enjoy digging holes. They call them very pure holes. Our protagonist's friend says to him at one point to illustrate this: "We have nothing to achieve by our activities, nowhere to get to. Is there not something marvelous about this? We hurt no one and no one gets hurt. No victory, no defeat."

I've been in this strange mood lately. I don't know if it's because of some big life changes coming up, endings and beginnings, evaluating things. Lots of work to get here, lots of energy invested in the future, current work that seems to be going nowhere as time is running out on me and my project. What's the point, I've been wondering? I think we live in a world in which we are always expected to be producing something. Or at least being productive. Especially in a field in which the mantra these days seems to be "publish or perish"! Why are you doing this experiment, how is this going to fit into the paper you are going to write? This seems to be the only thing that matters. At least to my boss. I am afraid to tell him that these past couple of months I have actually really enjoyed doing my work, for the sake of doing my work. Of course it would be nice to get my name on another publication - it never hurts - but to be very honest, I don't care nearly as much as I should. Or should I? What's so wrong about doing something just for the sake of doing it? It's intellectually challenging, even if it's not earth shattering science. It gives me purpose day to day. It has made me excited about research once more. Isn't it marvelous in a way?