We recently read Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods to the kids. The parents’ life was non-stop work from sun-up to sundown and beyond, and while there was some downtime in the winter, everyone was basically homebound. It did not seem like a bad life at all, but then I think there is an eternal virtue to hard work that is only tangentially related to sitting at a desk in the modern era.
I post this quote a lot, but I your point made me think of it again: "It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skillful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well, - this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of society as a whole." - Ursula K LeGuin
Nobody has to like everything. I like cooking, I hate doing dishes and cleaning. I know people who hate cooking and enjoy dishes. It is good to have a mix of complementary skills and preferences in a household.
It's a hell of a thing when, as a cook, you can stand up from a good dinner you made and walk away from the mess knowing that your roommate Barry wants to have a quiet hour of not talking to anyone doing the dishes and tidying the kitchen because he has actually been looking forward to it and that's what gives him peace. The same peace I got from chopping vegetables and stirring pots.
I've even met someone who likes doing laundry! They wash and iron their own dress shirts despite being perfectly able to pay an inexpensive dry cleaner and describe it as "Cheaper than seeing a shrink".
You make it sound as if washing and ironing is a massive chore.
Let's say you have 5 shirts a week. Step 1: When you do your white wash, throw in the shirts. Hang them up afterwards. Incremental cost: 2 minutes of your time... Step 2: When you do ironing, incremental cost of 5 shirts @ 3 minutes per shirt is 15 minutes... Probably less that your two trips to the dry cleaner. Plus, nil $ cost, no plastic wrapping to throw away, no use of dry cleaning chemicals.
I recently experienced this with a specific work-related task, where I was shocked to find myself enjoying doing something that I usually hate. When I asked myself what the difference was, the only thing I could come up with was that during this particular run-through, it was the only time that I wasn't rushing through the task while thinking about what came next.
Any additional insight into what's going on here? I'd love to wield this power to help myself love other things that I hate.
There are many definitions of cooking. Do you hate cooking for thanksgiving, when step-parents are coming for supper on sunday or when you slap peanut butter on loaves of bread ?
This seems counter-intuitive, if you consider the work choices throughout history. People who had no choice did all the "direct benefit" work (cooking, cleaning, etc) whereas those with money engaged in a bunch of pursuits with no clear benefits, just for the sake of it: science, theoretical math, philosophy, art, etc. Often the fruits of their work only came after their deaths.
