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Coffee Is Hard

stilldrinking.org

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Re: Coffee Is Hard

#111

Post by chrisco255 »

knzhou wrote: post #74
DantesKite wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting how all the tedious tasks listed are a product of modernity. Vacuuming, driving to work, flossing, doing dishes, etc. I wonder how repetitive life feels for humans who still have to hunt for their food. Not to say that we should shift back to a hunter-gatherer society, but I wonder how much of the mundaneness of life is something we brought on ourselves and not actually an implicit part of existence.

That's a totally backwards take. Most of these things are modern labor-saving devices that replaced even worse drudgery. Sweeping takes longer than vacuuming. Washing dishes by hand takes longer than a dishwasher -- especially if you don't have unlimited running water, or dish detergent, or if you need to start a fire to get hot water. Ancient Romans didn't have to deal with rush hour traffic, but research says their…

The most stressful thing about modern commutes is that you can easily die if you take your eyes off the road for one second. Romans on horseback certainly didn't have that problem.

Re: Coffee Is Hard

#112

Post by GordonS »

Loughla wrote: post #23
monktastic1 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of sounding hippie, "tedious" and "boring" are emotional reactions to the chores, and not attributable to the chores themselves. We don't have to do that. "Everything in life is miraculous. It rests within the power of each of us to awaken from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfuln…

Not to sound too much like a hippie, either, but I learned (actually after having a kid as well) that when people talked about enjoying the ride, that's what they were talking about - the tedious stuff. I always assumed it meant travel more and look for adventure, but I have come to understand that 'enjoying the ride' in your life, not always just pursuing some next thing is about enjoying the tedium. Some of my favo…

> watching them vacuum up the rugs and chase the cat with the broom

I find your definition of "tedious" to be at odds with your enjoyment of these experiences - maybe "tedious" is not the right word here?

Re: Coffee Is Hard

#113

Post by k2xl »

godot wrote: post #6

As a geek and a fan of 80s-90s PC games (not just Sierra but also LucasArts adventure games and so on), this was a super entertaining read on its own; but I also enjoyed some of these insights about life in general from it: > Living is mostly a series of repetitive and unrelated tasks. It makes sense that the most tedious things to code are the tedious things that just have to be done. There are no life lessons or gy…

this is a wonderful comment. as a new parent i'm in the same boat.

Re: Coffee Is Hard

#115

Post by rconti »

Loughla wrote: post #23
monktastic1 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of sounding hippie, "tedious" and "boring" are emotional reactions to the chores, and not attributable to the chores themselves. We don't have to do that. "Everything in life is miraculous. It rests within the power of each of us to awaken from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfuln…

Not to sound too much like a hippie, either, but I learned (actually after having a kid as well) that when people talked about enjoying the ride, that's what they were talking about - the tedious stuff. I always assumed it meant travel more and look for adventure, but I have come to understand that 'enjoying the ride' in your life, not always just pursuing some next thing is about enjoying the tedium. Some of my favo…

The parent post, and your reaction to it, reminds me of the two days after my wedding.

We were rushing to get everything ready for the wedding. Picking up supplies. Moving into a house near the venue for a couple of days. Doing the wedding itself, packing up, getting home the next day. Obviously it goes without saying that the weeks leading up to the wedding were busy, just a little bit more so than every week before it.

But when I pulled the van into our driveway, 36 hours before leaving for our honeymoon, I had a blissful amount of time to just do mundane tasks. Return the kegs. Break down dozens of cardboard boxes from gifts that had arrived in our absence. Return the van to my friend's house, retrieve my car from same friend. Pack for 12 days away.

It's hard to put into words, but I just realized that I was in absolutely no hurry, because, for what felt like the only time in recent memory, I had more time than I had stuff to do. I was not pressured, or rushed, or thinking about what comes next. I had vacation in front of me, stress behind me, and limited mundane tasks in the present.

And that's how I found myself breaking down cardboard boxes with a huge smile on my face. Slowly, methodically taking them apart. Not annoyed at how many boxes there were. Not thinking about how I had to finish this, so I could do the next thing, so I could get to bed, so I could wake up for work the next day.

I don't think I've ever been so 'present' than I was in that moment.

Re: Coffee Is Hard

#120

Post by jamiek88 »

jv22222 wrote: post #110
godot wrote: post #6

As a geek and a fan of 80s-90s PC games (not just Sierra but also LucasArts adventure games and so on), this was a super entertaining read on its own; but I also enjoyed some of these insights about life in general from it: > Living is mostly a series of repetitive and unrelated tasks. It makes sense that the most tedious things to code are the tedious things that just have to be done. There are no life lessons or gy…

At the risk of sounding pretentious, I gameify all those chores and try to do them more perfectly each time I do them. I find this especially effective filling up the dishwasher more perfectly optimizing the layout each time. I guess I approach these chores like Zen gardens. Anyway that’s how I tricked my brain into turning the chores into quality time. ;)

Me too!

If I'm going to clean, I might as well work towards being amazing at it.

Same tetris with the dishwasher too as well as trying to find the correct amount of detergent to use per load over a period of time with different loads and soil levels.

Sad I know!

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