What Gives Meaning...

Was scrubbing the floor this morning when this thought came to mind... what gives meaning actually to the things we do? I think we'll get all sorts of reasons... convictions, remunerations, threats, fears, compulsion..... the list is there.

Housework is one of those thankless jobs around and many of us would come up with all kinds of excuses and reasons why we need not do it, or if we have to do it, no need to be so particular about it. Was just thinking. What if housework is also paid in cash? Would the same sort of arguments against it now be used? Or the job will get the kind of attention that we so often reserve for those paid ones?

Even though many women work these days, their husbands generally do less housework in Asian countries. While many try not to say anything adverse about who should get the housework done, women generally still shoulder the bulk of the house stuff... from seeing to the food on the table, to laundry, getting the groceries, clearing and cleaning. And women themselves too, put housework at a level lower than paid work too. There was a working lady who told me that she is not too particular about the number of times the floor of her house needs to be swept every week. I wonder if she would say the same if housework is paid.

The thing was this. As I scrubbed away the dirt on the floor outside, I was suddenly amused by this thought that if that job would pay the me same as I was in my job, I am sure everyone would stop labelling being fastidious in household chores as being being naggy. Being fastidious would be a very good thing.

And here's this. To those wives, and mothers who toiled laboriously year after year, and in the end still get the shorter end of the deal, it is you actually who truly understand what it means to be accountable and even admirable in those mundane, meaningless tasks that you do day in and day out.

Oh ya... this is a sober reminder. Even for those of us who hold jobs that pay us money, there is also an expiration date to on us in that job. And at the end of the day when we are told that we need to leave because we have reached expiration dates, I think many of us do not know what to do with our lives too, cos all that we've known in all those productive years of ours is work equals remunerations that can be quantified. Some of us lose the focus in life. We become listless. Some of us are fortunate enough to find a second calling. Others just float along. Then there are those who simply just expire.

So, what gives meaning... Wonder Woman is the current blockbuster. In the movie, Diana finally decided to fight for humanity because of love. Love manifests itself in many forms. For those of us, whose mothers toiled unrelentingly in the kitchen making sure there is food, or fastidiously kept the floors clean so that we could just plop on the floor anytime of the day, or even coming home to not a single unfolded clothes lying around... perhaps that is what actually gives meaning.

While eventually all these mundane tasks might be taken over by bots or drones or whatever things robotic by nature, meaning in life sometimes does not necessarily have to be big things only. It is the small things that enable big achievements.

Ah well... ramblings on a morning of floor scrubbing...