At the Sink

Tonight I had the most meaningful experience that I've had all month.

I washed the dishes.

It felt real and right and yes it's silly because some people have to wash the dishes three times a day and chores are normal and it's like when duchesses used to have little gardens to play in so that they could pretend to be the laity for an hour because it was so "quaint." Well, it wasn't really that. It was just real. I was doing something. The dishes needed to be washed. My mom cooked dinner and I was home for the first time in a long time for dinner, and so I did the dishes and my mom got to play piano and my dad watched the end of whatever football game was on.

I don't remember the last time I felt so useful and busy and happy. Perhaps this is a little too Heideggerian, infusing everyday life with meaning... but every day life has meaning.

Maybe academia is just too removed from reality. Maybe it's too far removed from being human, which is doing and acting and fixing and folding laundry (eugh, yes, i need to do that after I finish this post... we'll see how meaningful that is...) and painting the house and making your own clothes and bringing casseroles to the lady next door and growing your own food and making things and needing to make things to survive.

Maybe it's not just academia that is too far removed from reality. Computers and supermarkets and malls and eBay and Pandora and cars and hairdressers mean that none of us ever have to do anything. Ever. We just buy things. And sit. We don't need to make our own music or cook our own food or even go anywhere on our own two feet.

It's easier, sure. But the easier something is, the less it matters. And so life gets easier and easier, and matters less and less.