I'm trying to find words to best differentiate attentions such as jobs, free time usage, and goals into two categories.
There are tasks that serve some level of reasonable necessity and most often provide some sort of tangible result.
And then there are instead tasks that are adopted for joy, interest, or expression.
Jobs like construction, farming, education, store stocker, or even table maker fall in the first category I'm visualizing.
Jobs like artist, clown, DJ, sports coach, or advertiser tend more towards the second category as a whole.
And fields like research, web design, typist, custodian, and city planner sit more upon the fence in what I'm reaching at, being less\not tangible in product and perhaps more marginal\varying in necessity typically.
I can see even now looking at those lists that some might find a few comparative groupings a bit perplexing, so perhaps further clarification of this "tangibility" would help?
The first class would involve primary connections... either creating objects (generally of at least some utility) or bearing central responsibility to allow it's existence\usage [manufacturer, airline schedule maker, architect].
The second class would serve as somewhat-less required intermediaries or be tasked with alleviating tertiary concerns to their existence [salesman, parking maid, waitress].
But despite how I can give some real boundaries to the distinction I speak of, I just cannot find great words to embody the ideas fully, especially the first group. The best words from each set I can come up with are:
Productive, tangible, constructive, practical, purposeful
vs
Entertaining, frivolous?
Most of the words come off weak and so broad that they miss most of the idea. Positive\negative connotation words are fair game (like frivolous), as it seems there's possibly some generally implied comparative benefit built into the first category versus the other, but non emotionless objective words are also of great interest.
Sample usages could be: George is more interested in [more] _______________ disciplines. or Tom is more ______________ while Jerry is ______________.
Perhaps my standards here are pretty obscure or subjective, or I've found the best words, and so there's just not much left to find. But if you do have any help I would greatly appreciate it, as it's a question that has plagued me for a long time!
