I washed half-a-rin-bar worth of clothes today. Now that is nothing unusual in itself, I have a been a hostelite for close to 13 years now, and I am not noted for my punctuality. But before today (and maybe yesterday, when also I washed half-a-rin-bar worth of clothes) I always looked at these chores as a pain in the behind. This was a tax to be paid, in order to live a life. I had read before about manual labour of this kind being held in high esteem by many great thinkers (names of Gandhiji and Tolstoy immediately come to mind), I think I saw the point this weekend. I tried to think why this should be so and give pleasure, here is what it seems to be
a. It gives a sense of new beginning, of washing away the old crud that has accumulated, and starting afresh.
b. The flow from chaos to order, the apparent expansion in space as you collect and put scattered things in their place has symbolic value for the unconscious mind.
c. Doing these small thing manually gives a sense of accomplishment (that might seem absurd).
I don't think I will be switching to doing everything manually right away, but I will certainly try to consciously preserve an element of manual labor in my life.
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