I once commented to my (young adult) son, that he could be listening to a podcast or an audiobook while doing the dishes. As a gamer and self-taught level designer, he spends a lot of time online. His answer stayed with me: no, he replied, he preferred having the time to just think. He’s also, like me, a philosopher at heart, and as an artist eschews digital tools for pencils.
As for me, I do often listen to podcasts or audiobooks while doing laundry or dishes, but not always. Taking a page from my son, sometimes I just think. And then sketch ideas in my art notebook!
I think you are wrong to say “I know I’m not an artist”. I think, at our best (that is at our most creative, engaged, satisfied) we are all or should all be artists - someone who has taken the time to learn an art, or skill, or indeed several. I wrote computer code most of my working life and some of my best software was a work of art, although ironically I was the only one who could see it 😂. I also with my wife raised 3 wonderful children and made and supported a home for them - a kind of work of art. The trick perhaps is how to be creative and attentive in the small things, as well as the larger, more obviously artistic ones.
There's a lot here to think about, and a fair bit I agree about, but I'd suggest it's important to highlight the importance of context. I really support mindfulness, grounding, and being present. There's a lot of value in fully engaging in the tasks we're doing (in the face of countless distractions), as well as partaking in activities that let our minds wander/rest/explore/wonder.
All of that being said, a lot of this depends on contextual factors like socioeconomic status and marginalized status, in addition to environmental factors. It's about the finite nature of time and a matter of priorities. I'm a father of three small children who works full time; if I had a robot that could do laundry and dishes, the 30-60 minutes a day I spend doing those things would instead become time I could spend playing guitar and writing new songs. I do my best to fully and mindfully engage in those tasks when I do them, but it'd be nice to have the choice to spend that time being creative. Maybe a way to look at this is having the power to choose? If my time was not so incredibly limited, I might feel differently. Sometimes my Roomba is the only reason I get to play guitar at all, unless I'm sacrificing sleep.
I don't want to understate the value of being present and grounded, and the importance of working with our hands in the world, but I think it's easy to ignore the fact that many populations are so busy with the activities of daily living that they do not have the time or privilege to engage in creative pursuits they might wish they could.
I completely feel the time crunch of working full time and having small children. And you are right that there are socioeconomic factors to consider. Many people are obligated to trade too much of their labor and time in jobs that might be repetitive and rote. Then coming home to the proverbial “second shift” of caring for home and children can leave you worn out and without time for leisure and art. I really think we all need a 4-day workweek so that we can have more time for care and art outside of paid employment.
I feel the same way about edtech evangelism of AI in the form of tools that will "relieve" teachers of the "tedium" of responding to student writing. To whatever extent that I've been successful as a writer, it's largely due to the years I've spent with other writers, colleagues and students alike, helping them think through how to improve their own prose. I know that it's not quite the same thing that you're talking about here, but it was close enough to resonate with me. Thanks! -cgb
I am an artist, and I co-sign. However, I CAN think of many tasks I'm made to do which are not acts of care or creation or maintenance, which do not improve the happiness of my home, or the lives of my loved ones -- I'm thinking of all the mundane repetitive tasks that the labor-saving machines require of me. I'm thinking of listening to a robot voice and navigating a phone menu system to deal with a payment, or rebooting and reconnecting multiple devices in different orders, attempting to get them to work, or even the work of ignoring the insistent alerts and reminders and notifications that crop up at important moments when I want and need to be present in the world. Every day I care for children, pets, livestock, a garden, and a home; every day I feed and water and humor and advise and create and enforce guidelines for the healthy growth of other living things I love; but also every day I am forced to spend time "tending to" and "caring for" the very machines that both interrupt my flow of life and promise to "make my life easier." THAT is the labor I don't want to do. Let the tech companies devise AI that will tend to the devices, not the laundry, not the writing, and certainly not the children. Tending to the good things is the good life. Tending to the pests you don't even really want in your life but which have been foisted upon you because they serve the interests of someone else far away, that is the "burden."
Great article. I am myself. I’m not an artist, but I agree with his last paragraph in which he says that we have to resist the temptation to believe that these times saving technologies are what will make life more meaningful. Because what’s implied in that statement is that all of the mundane labors we have to do, or at least I have to do, like washing the dishes, taking out the trash, fixing little things around my home, but these things are basically a waste of time and are impeding me from Self actualization. The truth is that these labors are part of self actualization, and the doing of them helps and stole those same virtues that the author describes earlier in the article. Most of us are not Zen Buddhist monks, nor would we want to be, but I smile when I think about How a Zen Buddhist monk might respond to the promise of greater self actualization if only their daily chores could be automated in someway by artificial intelligence.
Ehm, wow. I'm posting this on the fridge and mailing copies to my two thirty-something sons (who, thanks to their early grownup experiences are already on this path), along with a typed note of personal observation. To your point, I wish I would've come to this 'place' twenty years ago; and,
Better late than never: The pleasures I get from hanging the wash on my clothesline every week, doing dishes in the sink evenings, and repairing and maintaining pretty old equipment for daily use (the old Raleighs I get around on mostly, the fifty-two- year-old Triumph Bonneville and the fifty-year-old Volvo wagon) (one can actually maintain and repair these things and feel, well, 'accomplished') are immeasurable. And the cord of deadfall oak and ash firewood I split, stack and burn every winter? It does warm one twice. In ways that Siri (or HAL) will not 'comprehend'. Or likely permit.
Substack neighbor Ted Gioia just wrote of the new fridge he looked at for a replacement, a thing that communicated with the web about its contents, and I'm remembering a conversation I had last month with a friend who also refurbs old English bicycles for daily use, who went a little out of his way to replace his '90's fridge with a monitor-top GE unit built in the thirties, that has all the capacity of a larger Coleman cooler, but runs cheaper, quieter and more repairably than the big thing from the Big Box store, and does not report to the interweb. And how much more do you need to keep in your fridge than maybe a six-pack, yesterday's leftovers and a pint of ice cream? I'm starting to look for one - GE used to make them just an hour up the road from here, employing over 300 people in gainful work, all sufficiently paid to maintain a decent life in a town that was a lot more resilient fifty years ago than it is now. And it's all gone now, even the bones of that assembly plant.
And, to Dan's point here, earlier: while I'm not inclined to monasticism, either, as a complete vocation, there is a Zen-like quality in understanding, attending to and repairing the machinery that actually does make for a slightly better life. Far better than "working FOR the machine." Think there was even a popular book on the subject once upon a time.
Right. A whole life includes the more mundane tasks that we tend to call "chores." While I don't care to do them as much as the next person, there is something good about them. Doing them helps me stay rooted in the physical world, to appreciate our limitations, our bodies' needs. And yes, inspiration often comes from doing mundane, banal things. I've had breakthroughs while taking a walk, showering, or washing dishes. Though sometimes, the banal activities give one's mind the opportunity to take a break! It's nice to accomplish something without having to think too hard! Finally, I've made progress in my art directly from the mundane activity of stacking wood. I've noticed shapes in the wood that strike me, and I've developed them into art. It was a fun challenge to see if I could make something beautiful out of a chunk of wood that was only going to be burned. Three examples via links. https://www.toddcelmar.com/eventsshows and https://www.toddcelmar.com/blog
L.M. Sacaras, I hope you don't mind me sharing links to my own website, but in this case I think it fits with your post. Feel free to remove the links from my comment if that is best. All good. I don't want to take advantage.
Right on. I often think about how textured life is for me right now — making art and writing texts and doing a thousand dishes and closet clean-outs and kid carpools and dog walks and car repairs and all the rest. Domestic life with children in it, and all of the detritus it brings. When they eventually leave the house, it's true that my brain will be a little freer to pursue my thoughts and work more meditatively. But a big source of input will be lost, too. Making art requires much more than convenience and time; it requires having *something to say* — what Robert Pinsky called the instinct and wherewithal to "answer back" to life — and so much that's worth saying requires being in the muck of life to do so, including its many banal and repetitive jobs. I often think of playwright Sarah Ruhl on whether having children (and all the work that life with children implies) is a nuisance for intruding on the work of art: “Life intruding on writing was, in fact, life… At the end of the day, writing has very little to do with writing, and much to do with life. And life, by definition, is not an intrusion.”
Wonderful post! Thank you for writing it. I am currently reading a selection of essays entitled, “Every Man an Artist” curated by Brian Keeble, which, like your post, fits very much within my own philosophy and/or experience (about which I will be writing real soon. Yeah, right.). All of our endeavours, at least those which are gotten through learning, lore, knowledge, etc. and finally, practice (Praxis?) are definitionally, “art”. This is more or less Ruskin’s position, as I understand it, although to be honest, I don’t love agreeing with him too much because he was such a jerk: a combination of British supremicist snob and Malthusian eugenicist. He used his considerable influence to ruin people such as Whistler, for some reason, too.
Anyway, my point is that all of the things that we ever called “art” must be learned by every single generation anew. Every life is born into a kind of Renaissance -- no-one is born knowing how to speak English or Urdu or whatever, for example -- nor how to sew or build a shed --- all of it is a learned “craft”. The more we willingly give over to the Machine, as you rightly point out the sci-fi/fantasy author suggests we do, the less human we become it seems.
Thank you for writing this. I have had a constant feeling of obligation to respond with a sentiment similar to what you have shared here, ever since after I saw the original quote going around. I am happy to see how well you handled it and so now I am free to return to my household chores unbothered.
Dear L.M. Sacasas, If you have not already happened upon the essay Why Work? by Dorothy Sayers, I think you might enjoy it. A favorite quote of mine from that piece is this: “We should ask of an enterprise, not “will it pay?” but “is it good?”; of a man, not “what does he make?” but “what is his work worth?”; of goods, not “Can we induce people to buy them?” but “are they useful things well made?”; of employment, not “how much a week?” but “will it exercise my faculties to the utmost?” She seems to make the case--and a good one--- that the human being is the 'why' for the work. I thought of it as I read your essay today. The link to the piece is here in case you find time to read it. https://www1.villanova.edu/dam/villanova/mission/faith/Why%20Work%20by%20Dorothy%20Sayers.pdf I wrote my own piece with a nod to the same sentiment as inspired in part by her. https://medium.com/@shannonmullenokeefe/human-potential-a-playbook-for-the-next-century-eecaa0766d4c I'm a big fan of The Convivial Society, thank you for your ongoing work. -- Shannon
This resonated with something I read in Nathaniel Philbrick's book about Moby-Dick. Philbrick says that as he was writing the final climactic chapters of Moby-Dick, Melville turned to chores as a way to "marshal courage" and build up the "creative energies" he needed to finish the novel. In a letter to Hawthorne, Melville says that for three weeks straight he had been "out of doors,--building and patching and tinkering away in all directions. Besides, I had my crops to get in, corn and potatoes...and many other things to attend to, all accumulating upon this one particular season. I work myself; and at night my bodily sensations are akin to those I have so often felt before, when a hired man, doing my day's work from sun to sun."
I once commented to my (young adult) son, that he could be listening to a podcast or an audiobook while doing the dishes. As a gamer and self-taught level designer, he spends a lot of time online. His answer stayed with me: no, he replied, he preferred having the time to just think. He’s also, like me, a philosopher at heart, and as an artist eschews digital tools for pencils.
As for me, I do often listen to podcasts or audiobooks while doing laundry or dishes, but not always. Taking a page from my son, sometimes I just think. And then sketch ideas in my art notebook!
Great! I love to hear of people such as your son -- and yourself. It often feels kind of lonely out here.
There are more of us than you imagine!
That gladdens my heart more than you imagine!
I think you are wrong to say “I know I’m not an artist”. I think, at our best (that is at our most creative, engaged, satisfied) we are all or should all be artists - someone who has taken the time to learn an art, or skill, or indeed several. I wrote computer code most of my working life and some of my best software was a work of art, although ironically I was the only one who could see it 😂. I also with my wife raised 3 wonderful children and made and supported a home for them - a kind of work of art. The trick perhaps is how to be creative and attentive in the small things, as well as the larger, more obviously artistic ones.
Wonderful! You are an artist, indeed!
There's a lot here to think about, and a fair bit I agree about, but I'd suggest it's important to highlight the importance of context. I really support mindfulness, grounding, and being present. There's a lot of value in fully engaging in the tasks we're doing (in the face of countless distractions), as well as partaking in activities that let our minds wander/rest/explore/wonder.
All of that being said, a lot of this depends on contextual factors like socioeconomic status and marginalized status, in addition to environmental factors. It's about the finite nature of time and a matter of priorities. I'm a father of three small children who works full time; if I had a robot that could do laundry and dishes, the 30-60 minutes a day I spend doing those things would instead become time I could spend playing guitar and writing new songs. I do my best to fully and mindfully engage in those tasks when I do them, but it'd be nice to have the choice to spend that time being creative. Maybe a way to look at this is having the power to choose? If my time was not so incredibly limited, I might feel differently. Sometimes my Roomba is the only reason I get to play guitar at all, unless I'm sacrificing sleep.
I don't want to understate the value of being present and grounded, and the importance of working with our hands in the world, but I think it's easy to ignore the fact that many populations are so busy with the activities of daily living that they do not have the time or privilege to engage in creative pursuits they might wish they could.
I completely feel the time crunch of working full time and having small children. And you are right that there are socioeconomic factors to consider. Many people are obligated to trade too much of their labor and time in jobs that might be repetitive and rote. Then coming home to the proverbial “second shift” of caring for home and children can leave you worn out and without time for leisure and art. I really think we all need a 4-day workweek so that we can have more time for care and art outside of paid employment.
I feel the same way about edtech evangelism of AI in the form of tools that will "relieve" teachers of the "tedium" of responding to student writing. To whatever extent that I've been successful as a writer, it's largely due to the years I've spent with other writers, colleagues and students alike, helping them think through how to improve their own prose. I know that it's not quite the same thing that you're talking about here, but it was close enough to resonate with me. Thanks! -cgb
I am an artist, and I co-sign. However, I CAN think of many tasks I'm made to do which are not acts of care or creation or maintenance, which do not improve the happiness of my home, or the lives of my loved ones -- I'm thinking of all the mundane repetitive tasks that the labor-saving machines require of me. I'm thinking of listening to a robot voice and navigating a phone menu system to deal with a payment, or rebooting and reconnecting multiple devices in different orders, attempting to get them to work, or even the work of ignoring the insistent alerts and reminders and notifications that crop up at important moments when I want and need to be present in the world. Every day I care for children, pets, livestock, a garden, and a home; every day I feed and water and humor and advise and create and enforce guidelines for the healthy growth of other living things I love; but also every day I am forced to spend time "tending to" and "caring for" the very machines that both interrupt my flow of life and promise to "make my life easier." THAT is the labor I don't want to do. Let the tech companies devise AI that will tend to the devices, not the laundry, not the writing, and certainly not the children. Tending to the good things is the good life. Tending to the pests you don't even really want in your life but which have been foisted upon you because they serve the interests of someone else far away, that is the "burden."
Such a good point, Amy. Thank you.
Great article. I am myself. I’m not an artist, but I agree with his last paragraph in which he says that we have to resist the temptation to believe that these times saving technologies are what will make life more meaningful. Because what’s implied in that statement is that all of the mundane labors we have to do, or at least I have to do, like washing the dishes, taking out the trash, fixing little things around my home, but these things are basically a waste of time and are impeding me from Self actualization. The truth is that these labors are part of self actualization, and the doing of them helps and stole those same virtues that the author describes earlier in the article. Most of us are not Zen Buddhist monks, nor would we want to be, but I smile when I think about How a Zen Buddhist monk might respond to the promise of greater self actualization if only their daily chores could be automated in someway by artificial intelligence.
Ehm, wow. I'm posting this on the fridge and mailing copies to my two thirty-something sons (who, thanks to their early grownup experiences are already on this path), along with a typed note of personal observation. To your point, I wish I would've come to this 'place' twenty years ago; and,
Better late than never: The pleasures I get from hanging the wash on my clothesline every week, doing dishes in the sink evenings, and repairing and maintaining pretty old equipment for daily use (the old Raleighs I get around on mostly, the fifty-two- year-old Triumph Bonneville and the fifty-year-old Volvo wagon) (one can actually maintain and repair these things and feel, well, 'accomplished') are immeasurable. And the cord of deadfall oak and ash firewood I split, stack and burn every winter? It does warm one twice. In ways that Siri (or HAL) will not 'comprehend'. Or likely permit.
Substack neighbor Ted Gioia just wrote of the new fridge he looked at for a replacement, a thing that communicated with the web about its contents, and I'm remembering a conversation I had last month with a friend who also refurbs old English bicycles for daily use, who went a little out of his way to replace his '90's fridge with a monitor-top GE unit built in the thirties, that has all the capacity of a larger Coleman cooler, but runs cheaper, quieter and more repairably than the big thing from the Big Box store, and does not report to the interweb. And how much more do you need to keep in your fridge than maybe a six-pack, yesterday's leftovers and a pint of ice cream? I'm starting to look for one - GE used to make them just an hour up the road from here, employing over 300 people in gainful work, all sufficiently paid to maintain a decent life in a town that was a lot more resilient fifty years ago than it is now. And it's all gone now, even the bones of that assembly plant.
And, to Dan's point here, earlier: while I'm not inclined to monasticism, either, as a complete vocation, there is a Zen-like quality in understanding, attending to and repairing the machinery that actually does make for a slightly better life. Far better than "working FOR the machine." Think there was even a popular book on the subject once upon a time.
Thanks for this tack you're on.
Right. A whole life includes the more mundane tasks that we tend to call "chores." While I don't care to do them as much as the next person, there is something good about them. Doing them helps me stay rooted in the physical world, to appreciate our limitations, our bodies' needs. And yes, inspiration often comes from doing mundane, banal things. I've had breakthroughs while taking a walk, showering, or washing dishes. Though sometimes, the banal activities give one's mind the opportunity to take a break! It's nice to accomplish something without having to think too hard! Finally, I've made progress in my art directly from the mundane activity of stacking wood. I've noticed shapes in the wood that strike me, and I've developed them into art. It was a fun challenge to see if I could make something beautiful out of a chunk of wood that was only going to be burned. Three examples via links. https://www.toddcelmar.com/eventsshows and https://www.toddcelmar.com/blog
L.M. Sacaras, I hope you don't mind me sharing links to my own website, but in this case I think it fits with your post. Feel free to remove the links from my comment if that is best. All good. I don't want to take advantage.
Don't mind at all.
Right on. I often think about how textured life is for me right now — making art and writing texts and doing a thousand dishes and closet clean-outs and kid carpools and dog walks and car repairs and all the rest. Domestic life with children in it, and all of the detritus it brings. When they eventually leave the house, it's true that my brain will be a little freer to pursue my thoughts and work more meditatively. But a big source of input will be lost, too. Making art requires much more than convenience and time; it requires having *something to say* — what Robert Pinsky called the instinct and wherewithal to "answer back" to life — and so much that's worth saying requires being in the muck of life to do so, including its many banal and repetitive jobs. I often think of playwright Sarah Ruhl on whether having children (and all the work that life with children implies) is a nuisance for intruding on the work of art: “Life intruding on writing was, in fact, life… At the end of the day, writing has very little to do with writing, and much to do with life. And life, by definition, is not an intrusion.”
Thank you for these reflections, Sarah. So good.
Wonderful post! Thank you for writing it. I am currently reading a selection of essays entitled, “Every Man an Artist” curated by Brian Keeble, which, like your post, fits very much within my own philosophy and/or experience (about which I will be writing real soon. Yeah, right.). All of our endeavours, at least those which are gotten through learning, lore, knowledge, etc. and finally, practice (Praxis?) are definitionally, “art”. This is more or less Ruskin’s position, as I understand it, although to be honest, I don’t love agreeing with him too much because he was such a jerk: a combination of British supremicist snob and Malthusian eugenicist. He used his considerable influence to ruin people such as Whistler, for some reason, too.
Anyway, my point is that all of the things that we ever called “art” must be learned by every single generation anew. Every life is born into a kind of Renaissance -- no-one is born knowing how to speak English or Urdu or whatever, for example -- nor how to sew or build a shed --- all of it is a learned “craft”. The more we willingly give over to the Machine, as you rightly point out the sci-fi/fantasy author suggests we do, the less human we become it seems.
Thank you for writing this. I have had a constant feeling of obligation to respond with a sentiment similar to what you have shared here, ever since after I saw the original quote going around. I am happy to see how well you handled it and so now I am free to return to my household chores unbothered.
Relevant to this article, and especially to the poem:
"“Your labor is your contribution to the miracle" - Elizabeth Gilbert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9H5Eb7au7E&list=PLrvaWm2ukqsX0rDiAbbpjvcng_leQTyX5
As I was reading this piece, I kept thinking of McEntrye's poem, only to be delighted by its appearance at the end!
You're the one who brought to my attention in response to an earlier post, if I remember correctly!
Dear L.M. Sacasas, If you have not already happened upon the essay Why Work? by Dorothy Sayers, I think you might enjoy it. A favorite quote of mine from that piece is this: “We should ask of an enterprise, not “will it pay?” but “is it good?”; of a man, not “what does he make?” but “what is his work worth?”; of goods, not “Can we induce people to buy them?” but “are they useful things well made?”; of employment, not “how much a week?” but “will it exercise my faculties to the utmost?” She seems to make the case--and a good one--- that the human being is the 'why' for the work. I thought of it as I read your essay today. The link to the piece is here in case you find time to read it. https://www1.villanova.edu/dam/villanova/mission/faith/Why%20Work%20by%20Dorothy%20Sayers.pdf I wrote my own piece with a nod to the same sentiment as inspired in part by her. https://medium.com/@shannonmullenokeefe/human-potential-a-playbook-for-the-next-century-eecaa0766d4c I'm a big fan of The Convivial Society, thank you for your ongoing work. -- Shannon
Shop Class as Soulcraft, q.v.
This resonated with something I read in Nathaniel Philbrick's book about Moby-Dick. Philbrick says that as he was writing the final climactic chapters of Moby-Dick, Melville turned to chores as a way to "marshal courage" and build up the "creative energies" he needed to finish the novel. In a letter to Hawthorne, Melville says that for three weeks straight he had been "out of doors,--building and patching and tinkering away in all directions. Besides, I had my crops to get in, corn and potatoes...and many other things to attend to, all accumulating upon this one particular season. I work myself; and at night my bodily sensations are akin to those I have so often felt before, when a hired man, doing my day's work from sun to sun."