Hacker News Reader

Comment by monktastic1 | Hacker News Reader

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 wonderfulness." ― James Branch Cabell, The Cream of the Jest

Not that I've remotely mastered it, but I think there's a lot of wisdom in there.

View on HN

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 favorite memories of my young children is the time we spent washing dishes together or watching them vacuum up the rugs and chase the cat with the broom.

It's all about enjoying the ride, man.

Sisyphus may disagree. :)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus

If I was Sisyphus and got the boulder to the top, I would push it back down myself.

I'm going to die eventually, so is it futile to exercise everyday, to learn, to try and be a better person? I don't think so, but all of those things are journeys that never end and require many mundane tasks.

> If I was Sisyphus and got the boulder to the top, I would push it back down myself.

I'm really loving this quote, definitely using it at some point.

In all fairness I think I first heard it here.

https://youtu.be/7qNGWjDzxpQ

I like the "Discipline is Freedom" on that guy's t-shirt. Its arguable, but its deep.

The person talking in the video is Jocko Willink [1]. He's written quite a few books, one of which is entitled "Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual"[2]. His whole concept is that increasing your discipline leads to more freedom.

How can one be free when they are a slave to their discipline? A great example is time, everyone wants more of it. The way to get more time is to not waste time. Being discipline with ones time is how not to waste it.

I'm far from the most disciplined person (practicing discipline is pushing the rock), but in the ~2 years since I really put more discipline in place it has changed me as a person. Highly recommended.

[1] He has podcasts, and many books. I suggest listening to Tim Ferris when Jocko was on as an intro.

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Discipline-Equals-Freedom-Field-Manua...

> I'm going to die eventually, so is it futile to exercise everyday, to learn, to try and be a better person?

Many repetitive activities end up having a practical purpose: as someone who does strength training I know about sets and reps and lifting heavy things. But that gives me strength for everyday things.

But the point of giving Sisyphus that task is precisely because it is pointless. Sisyphus isn't doing anything with his existence except that task.

One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

I wonder if sadistic Zeus would sometimes not give him a boulder to push for a day or two.

I think the catch there is that Zeus doesn't imagine Sisyphus happy.

The double catch is that neither Zeus's nor Sisyphus's state of mind matter, skipping a day or two is detrimental to both the good and the bad interpretation. If Sisyphus is unhappy pushing a rock every day (the first level interpretation) taking it away gives false hope and fosters doubt. If Sisyphus becomes happy or fulfilled pushing the rock, taking it away temporarily removes that satisfaction and again leads to doubt.

In other words, arbitrary and random work, putting someone in an uncertain and unpredictable situation is worse than constant and well-defined work.

The horrifying aspect of Sisyphus is that he is doomed to do it for all eternity. Whereas we have only a limited time to cherish or despise every carpet vacuumed until we die. I believe that we transcend the mundane every time we embrace it and truly live it instead of wishing desperately to be doing something else.

Yup, every time I have some horrible/menial/stressful task to complete, I think "I appreciate the opportunity to even experience this moment and witness the dream of existence". I mean, maybe not with that wording, but that approximate sentiment of, I get to exist and experience all that entails, and I can appreciate it even if is "not enjoyable" at that moment. Of course that only really works for things that aren't truly terrible, but I think in general it's a good perspective to take!

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

Albert Camus

Hah. I only ever encountered the last sentence of that quote and I thought it was an imperative.

Your reference is outdated :P https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7E-ttJpJ7Q

There are many meanings, of which you have described two.

Are we using the same definition of "tedious"? This is what I get:

Tedious: too long, slow, or dull; tiresome or monotonous.

"Too" long as in "longer than I'd like." Tiresome. Monotonous. Those sound like the opposite of enjoying the ride to me!

The point is you learn to appreciate the substance of everyday life and it ceases to feel tedious. Perhaps mundanity would have been a better word. This idea, by the way, is called "mindfulness" and is the essence of Buddhism.

I think English translation of Buddhism could use some more distinct words, because "mindfulness" is also a part of "insight meditation", and - as far as I understand - these concepts are rather different from each other.

Mind to explain how these concepts are rather different?

The act itself is tedious, if that's all you focus on. Spending time together, enjoying the small little games we play, and the touches on the arm and dumb jokes that happen while we're doing something tedious, are some of the best memories. When you focus on the nothing that's happening, it's tedium. When you focus on everything around it and the break from the chaos of the rest of your day, it's still tedious, but it's also peaceful.

It's tangential to the discussion but I find it surprising and slightly upsetting the fact that people downvote someone who basically quotes the definition of a word as-it-is, verbatim. It happens quite often on hacker news.

Are the folks here denying definitions and they make up their world instead and get upset when they encounter reality, or why does this downvoting happen? I'd really like to know.

Not a downvoter of GP and have no opinion of this particular provision of a definition.

However, “quot[ing] the definition” in this case is citing a denotative facet of the word. There is also nuanced and idiomatic usage that is indicated in connotative meaning.

Pointing to denotative meanings when connotation is more contextually relevant is often considered combative and may garner downvotes.

It takes as long as it takes, how long you'd like it to take is a thought you can change. If you change your thought to want it to take as long as it actually takes, it stops being tedious?

> 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?

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.

Thanks for sharing that; it certainly put a smile on my face :)

To riff a bit on this: I've noticed in my life that I subconsciously subdivide every activity into two categories: things to accomplish, and obstacles to the former. I have not in my life ever enjoyed the second category. The crux being that by consciously re-sorting the activity from obstacle to target I get much more enjoyment out of it.

If I can convince myself that clearing the table for a new project is in itself a project it'll be cleared and washed and clean with a smile on my face. If I can't I'll be much more likely to just shove everything to the side to "solve" the obstacle and keep going.

I'm not very good at recategorising stuff on purpose yet, but it's definitely something I'm actively practicing.

Anyways I figured that's more or less the same thing as the journey-vs-destination thing worded a bit differently.

I'll end my ramble here before it gets too long.

Thanks for this. I've heard folks refer to "replacing 'shoulds' with 'coulds'". Don't say "I SHOULD do the dishes"; it's not an obligation, it's a choice. You can let the dishes stack up. That will have its own consequences, but don't treat things like obligations, treat them like choices you're making.

>>that when people talked about enjoying the ride, that's what they were talking about - the tedious stuff

It sounds like a rationalization to me.

This. That said, there's some tedious things that are enjoyable when done occasionally.

"tedious" and "enjoyable" are not inherent properties of things or events, they're states of the observer.

Things aren't tedious, you the observer put the label 'tedious' on them and then yearn to get away from them.

Since you are actually vacuuming and not putting it off or paying someone else to do it, this is unhelpful labelling which only serves to make you less happy. You may as well consider it a new instance of vacuuming never seen before and look for the differences and seek to enjoy it, as considering it the same vacuuming event as last time copy-pasted and look for the similarities and then call them boring. If you have to pass through it either way, why pick the interpretation which makes you feel worse?

Like "you never step in the same river twice" because the water changes, and you change, you never vacuum the same room twice.

“If you’re bored then you’re boring”

So what?

"Oh this person rationalized happiness out of a miserable life, instead of just being miserable. Somehow, that's bad and nobody should bother doing that" .. ?

I read this as I watched my 2 year old daughter joyfully scrub the shower with a nylon brush. She's demanded the brush ever since she watched me use it months ago.

I think finding lovely things tedious is something most of us learn, then unlearn.

It's still new and exciting when you're 2. I don't think you're unlearning loving the tedious. Things are just not tedious at that point, but fun, novel, and optional. If she didn't want to scrub the shower, she wouldn't. But we have to do it.

Oh no, little kids absolutely love familiar, boring, repetitive things. They also like routine a lot and can get upset when given too much choice. Look at how often toddlers want to re-watch the same cartoon over and over.

Just give them a different spoon with their morning porridge and watch the drama unfold :D

So true. So very true. I wish I could up vote this more than once.

Just finished bath time with new toys...I didn’t think the old, mouldy, janky beyond repair toys would be missed. Oh boy, was I wrong.

maybe we do have an instinctual aversion to disposable culture? :)

Semi related but there was an article on here or slash about that re-watching thing. Part of it is because they "miss" so much when watching it that it is almost like "watching it again for the first time". I wish my Google fu was working because it was a neat article about young brain development and such.

"The only advice I have is, is that give you have to do some things anyway, you might as well find the joy in them and do them with a smile"

Changing a nappy bleary eyed at 4 am with an inconsolable screaming infant I recalled this advice from my friend with three kids. I had a sort of epiphany realizing that I could control me reaction and find joy in pretty much anything if I accept that it just has to be done.

Finally, it comes down to a decision when I am not enjoying something: i) Do I have to do this? (can I change the circumstances, or not do it) ii) if yes, be creative and enjoy it.

Surprisingly, works a lot of the time. The times this reasoning fails is when the task imposed on me is by other people that to my judgement have done it out of laziness, incompetence or exploitation.

"But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it’s also not impossible. It just depends what you want to consider. If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down." -- David Foster Wallace, This is Water

https://fs.blog/2012/04/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/

She may also be a deranged and unrepentant child abuser who uses whatever societal approval is thrown her way to justify and escalate her abuse. There’s simply no way to know.

You've missed the point.

Maybe they understood the point and disagreed with it.

The point, if such a thing exists, is to accept any and all of those possibilities with equanimity.

sure, but taking one assumption is to approach from a position of harsh condemnation and the other is to approach from a position of possible forgiveness.

Sufficiently deranged people take forgiveness as approval and encouragement. It may be good to forgive and may not (at least in your external behavior—going around internally upset all the time is surely not good for anyone regardless). It requires prudence to figure out one way or the other.

He killed himself.

fought the good fight, and then his meds stopped working.

are you holding that against him? Does this bear on the wisdom of the advice?

Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

I'm a fan of meditation and mind body awareness. I think that digging a ditch can a quite interesting because, while somewhat repetitive, it also involves variation and the challenge putting your entire body into the activity. Even dish washing or sweeping involves quite a bit of integrating intention and the use of the body.

All that said, I don't think you can say this is just a question of attitude. Some activities just inherently suck - 19th factory jobs, manual data entry and things of this sort can't be redeemed by attitude. Indeed, it's probably better to hate jobs like that than to think of them as a reasonable place for a human being to end up.

> manual data entry and things of this sort can't be redeemed by attitude

Actually, this is false. I've been programming for 30 years straight, except for a brief 1 year stint as a data entry operator. I made it my goal to be the best data entry operator they had ever seen. This was for Robert Half/Accountemps, an employment agency that both acts as a headhunter firm for data entry operators and a contracting company that hires out data entry operators. I was able to continuously focus on getting better in such that I could accomplish as much in 4 hours as they're best high-end "professional" data entry operators could do in a day, with similar accuracy metrics. I did this by programming a series of macros to accelerate what I did, and other tricks such as pre-sorting similar items.

While I do agree with your general sentiment to some extent, the best way to deal with undesirable menial tasks is to dig in and push for excellence.

... Push for excellence?

Seriously, if the dishes are clean, how much more excellence do I need? Same with most menial house-cleaning tasks. I don't mind a messy house, so why put more effort into doing these things than necessary?

You weren't doing what they were doing any more than a person with a dishwasher or robot vacuum are doing the chore of washing dishes or vacuuming, even if they are getting a similar result. You simply made the dishwasher, which is far more interesting than doing the manual stuff.

It wasn't redeemed by attitude, but by tools that made it better. Others might not have had the knowledge to so, which reflects better on what most folks are stuck with. Either no knowledge of ways to make it better or lack of permission to use that knowledge. Unlike you, they are stuck. The conveyor line only moves at x speed, you cannot tear the sale signs fast enough, federal laws say you have to fill out these forms, the company wants everyone to do it this way because compliance is better and standardised.

When I feel myself lapsing into grumpiness at the mundane nature of everyday life I sometimes manage to help myself by attempting to picture the theoretical ideal life I am not living, and then reflecting on the absurdity of wishing things were different. Should it involve: not having to do boring tasks? Being a bit taller, funnier and better looking? Being super rich? Being the most powerful person on earth? Being an omniscient, transcendental super-being, free of time and space, able to manipulate entire galaxies on a whim?

Everyone is missing out on something; everyone is a prisoner of circumstance.

I agree with your point that it's all about perspective, but you can easily spin it negatively.

"Life is suffering" -Buddha

"Tedium is the worst pain" -Grendel

I realize that first quote is meant to be encouraging, but you can take it at face value to mean what it is: most of life sucks.

Pessimism and optimism are choices we make on how to interpret reality based on our experiences. This might sound like some feel-good comment that you can easily just see things better if you try to frame it differently but it's not. I am profoundly cynical and genuinely believe the world would be a better place if more people would replace their unfounded optimism with skepticism. Sometimes there really isn't a reason to be optimistic other than a desire to feel better about the situation.

but you can take it at face value to mean what it is: most of life sucks.

Boy, howdy, have you misinterpreted the Buddha. I believe most would agree that in context, Buddha was saying, "Life is suffering because $REASONS. But it doesn't have to be, because $OTHER_REASONS." A vast oversimplification, yes, but I feel that it is a much more accurate representation of the quote.

If that's the case you're right and I'm completely wrong about that quote. I don't pretend to be a Buddhist so you're more likely to be right than me. I have not bothered to verify this as of this writing.

Another famous quote that everybody gets wrong because they cut it short:

"Distance makes the heart grow fonder"

That quote means separation is good for couples, but almost nobody knows the actual quote:

"Distance makes the heart grow fonder for those nearer"

This is saying distance destroys relationships and you will look for affection from someone who is available.

The fact that there was an original version of a quote doesn't make the original version any more "true," so I've never quite understood the instinct of people to use it as some kind of gotcha.

Indeed, if anything it seems like in general the opposite would be true, if common culture adapts a quote to more accurately fit their reality (irrespective of whether this particular quote is "true" or not).

(Also, I can't find any source for your claim, despite plenty of articles on the source of the phrase, such as https://quotes.yourdictionary.com/articles/who-said-absence-..., so I'm guessing that's a myth.)

Well shit :)

I didn't mean it as a gotcha, just that people will mangle quotes to support whatever idea they're trying to argue. Ironically it seems I have accidentally done the same thing.

The actual quote from who? That sounds like something that was retroactively added - like how people say the full version of "Great minds think alike" is actually "Great minds think alike, small minds rarely differ." It's an aphorism. There is no definitive source.

"Life is suffering" is not something the Buddha ever said: https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/life-is-suffering/

He did say that we turn much of life into suffering by our unwise reaction to it.

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

As a sidenote, I find that being overly tired or stressed makes it far more difficult for me to appreciate/enjoy the miracle of the everyday quotidian.

Part of not being bored is to ensure you are "present", which is a whole lot easier when you're well rested.

Yes! There's a quote that resonated with me:

"Some people do the dishes to make them clean. Some people do the dishes to do the dishes."

Valuing the experience that is happening, whatever it may be, has power.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com