Talgud, "Jõudu!" and other Estonian cultural features

Not too long ago, I was slacklining in a nice big park - it may have been one of the several parks around Tartu that are a consequence of bombed residential areas during WWII. That's the second case in which there's a historical catch to something I enjoy in Tartu (see last post). An Estonian man approached me to ask about the slackline. When I asked him what he was doing, he sighed and said, “Well, right now, just enjoying watching him work” - and he pointed to a guy mowing the lawn.  I mentioned an Estonian idiom I had learned that directly translates as "eyes rest watching other people working." He nodded and told me that Estonians like 3 things: fire, water, and other people working. However, this list did not ring a bell to another Estonian, who explained that fire and water are sacred elements stemming from their mystical love of nature, which are admired with dreamy eyes, while watching other people working is both profane and lazy. Because it is well known that Estonians are hardworking, it was some kind of ironic joke created by the morally and categorically incongruent last feature of the sequence. Likewise, the idiom of the eyes resting is also meant in an ironic way, though it can also be used positively in other contexts - namely as commentary on a job well-done after a long day's work.

This shed light on a previous interaction with another friend. He invited me to go drink beer and watch his friends clean up their backyard during talgud. Talgud is one realization of the Estonian value of hard work - it describes an ad hoc event in which people, such as family, friends, or a larger community, gather to complete a big work project together. Afterward they have food and go to the sauna, and there is even a special soup called talgusupp (soup of talgud). Confused, I asked, "Shouldn't we help them?" He replied something like no - that would take away the pleasure of our eyes resting. Now I realize there was some sarcasm to this, but at the time I was puzzled by the apparent contradiction.

Finally, there is an idiomatic greeting which might be the one exception where an Estonian says something to a stranger on the street - "Jõudu!" It's untranslatable, but I'm told it means something like power or force for work (a helpful informant joked that it's like 'may the force be with you), so in effect it's a wish that they finish their work well. It is automatically said by passersby to those working outside, often in relation to weather and seasons such as shoveling snow, because they can all relate to this hard and often annoying work. It seems clear that hard work is an integral cultural feature connecting Estonians, especially when it occasions the only habitual verbal exchange between strangers on the street.