Things I Don’t Want To Do

Things I don’t want to do, like weekly chores, suddenly don’t seem to be so bad when I am stuck, blocked, not able to proceed for one more line. At such a moment, my self doubt is everywhere, sitting on this very chair, filling up the four corners of the room, clinging up to the walls and the ceiling. Even the fall leaves out the window seem to shake with disapproval and misgiving. Nothing is spared of the touch of insecurity and self loathe. At such a moment, tidying up, wiping counters, mopping kitchen floor can be a welcome diversion. At least this is something I can do for certain. Something I can accomplish and the result is exactly as I would expect. Certainty is a wonderful thing. No wonder we often opt for a life of certainty even if we are bored to the point of madness.

It’s really the fault of our ancestors who decided to switch from hunting and gathering to agriculture. Hunting and gathering are surely more fun, but with uncertain results; agriculture, on the other hand, adds a lot of certainty to life, but the fun part is probably reduced. With so much repetition of work, long hour of labor, often in one backbreaking position of bending over during the plant season for hours if not for days, our ancestors continued year after year. I think they probably didn’t really enjoy the switch in the beginning. There must be a lot of people who reversed back to hunting and gathering in the beginning. Then during the lean season without much wild animal to prey on or without anything to gather, they went hungry. Hunger is a worse enemy than boredom obviously. So it ended up that people went back to planting and harvesting. So this tradition of aversion to uncertainty was born and passed on to posterity.