Dirty Floors and the Divorce of Labour
Reflecting during the solitary duty of mopping the kitchen floor, while listening to Leonard Cohen nonetheless, tends to make one melancholy and introspective. This played out Saturday morning while trying to banish my new dog’s proliferation of air-borne fur. Anyone have any tips? And no - I’m not buying a Swiffer!
The simple act of performing monotonous household duties is one of the few times when I have the mental solitude necessary to let my mind wander to less pressing issues. The kids tend to give me a wide berth while doing things that aren’t livened up with bells, whistles and exploding cars. Saturday was no different. While wringing out the mop and watching the water discolour with the remnants of the past weeks activities, I witnessed the cause and effects of everything that happened in that room by every member of my family - including this new furball we adopted a few months ago.
Today, in our increasingly busy lives, we tend to outsource the less appealing of our household duties. With rising incomes, the hiring of “the cleaning lady” (because I’ve never seen a cleaning man before) is something common to households across the continent regardless of income or socio-economic position in society. It is commonplace, and Windsor is no different.
Yet this simple act has an effect that is impacting our society. It allows people to disregard the effects of their actions, “downloading” the clean-up to others who also don’t have the ability to witness the cause and effects as they are only a part of a financial transaction at this point. Each party is removed from the cyclical process and are therefore devoid of any greater comprehension.
We witness this with most of our daily lives. We do not actively engage in the clean-up resulting from our transportation systems, our energy production systems nor our food production systems. We are divorced from the complete process, so we do not have the ability to understand the cause and effects of our actions - good or bad. This has essentially removed us from the process as a whole.
To what degree this translates into our greater societies innability to connect the cause and effects of our everyday habits is a topic that belongs to people much brighter than me.
I was simply mopping my floor.
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Wow, I thought I was the only one who waxed philosophical while doing monotonous household labour! It is interesting that being divorced from the process of living is what is actually killing our society. When we export the process of life, we disengage ourselves, making it easier to consume an destroy. Try growing your own food and you suddenly have a greater appreciation for the effort it takes to grow, and, thus, take greater care in the use of that resource. It is funny, in a sad sort of way, all the things in our lives that push us to be disengaged from the world around us. What is even more startling is those things which we heralded as great advancements in technology that have further segregated us from that very process which enriches our lives — human interaction. Television, the internet, the automobile — just to name a few — have seperated us from each other, isolating us under the guise of international unity.
Kind of depressing, eh?
Depressing? Kind of. But at least we have in our view a good chunk of the problems before us as a civil society. The big problem will be trying to convince Joe/Anne Public that doing this “menial” labour is actually good for them.
I question that every time I fill the sink up with suds to do yet another round of dishes. Yet once I get into it, with the kids drying and finally telling me about their day at school, the thug trying to get my son to eat a worm, the stress my 12 year old daughter is experiencing thinking about her graduation dress (which isn’t happening ’til next year!) it is all worthwhile.
I’m not telling everyone to adopt a Luddite’s lifestyle, but simply turning off the electricity every now and then works wonders for an over-stimulated brain.
Oddly enough we have embraced the simplicity (the ecology is a point of debate) of washing dishes by hand. Shortly after we moved into our house our dishwasher died and we opted not to replace it. There is something to be said for the silence of washing dishes. In fact, the wife and I often argue over who gets to wash dishes — it is a solitary chore — and who has to wrangle the kids into bed!
I embrace the idea of doing physical labour to centre yourself. I had quite the insightful experience, perched high above my house one day, pruning some trees. Interesting how intimately we view our lives when we engaged in physical labours for the betterment of ourselves or others.
Is the confessional open for us guys, is that what you are saying Chris. That yes some of us men actually like doing housework and the disconnect it brings from the other aspects of our daily lives. Resounding Yes! And I even do windows!
I also agree with Josh, that we are being continuously disconnected by more and more stuff and things that really don’t make our lives better. I’ve have been almost two years now in trying to declutter my life and this place, to reduce my life of things I don’t need nor want. I’m still at it! It’s easy to buy something thinking that it will make your life better somehow than it is to get rid of it and get it out of your life!
Hmmm, I just got up to get another coffee, wondering who is going to do the dishes in the sink..are you available Chris?
Smart ass!
Count me in as well Chris. This weekend I considered to be a very relaxing one. I only did a bunch of yard work, cleaned windows, cleaned the house…all the while contemplating how I was going to restore this, fix that, think of the complex societal issues we have made for ourselves…
Personally, I quite enjoy the solitude without having to be bothered by inane intrusions into my minds eye.
As for the new member of your household. Keep brushing the pup every other day to keep the fur from flying. It is truly the only way to keep it from getting throughout the house even though it is rather tedious. Besides the pup will learn to enjoy it and will be a better dog for it.
What’s wrong with Swiffer? If you prefer a more environmentally-friendly option, the dollar store has a washable swiffer pad and there are rubber-bristled brooms out there that I am told are wonderful on pet hair. If you’re in Walkerville, maybe visit Karen @ The Hounds of Walkerville because she’s the one that recommended it to me for my wildly shedding dog. Other than that I think you just give up and live with the fact that you will find pet hair everywhere.
Get a swiffer.
We’ve got two cats and a swiffer and have no complaints about either.
Open the front door. Fire up the air compressor. Blow all the dog/cat hair out into the front yard. Bonus points if there is an top-down convertible parked in front of your house.
How about weaving something out of the dog hair go here:
http://redwolf.com.au/column/opinion/2003/07/spinning_and_we.html
Or recycling it!
http://www.recyclethis.co.uk/20070504/how-can-i-reuse-or-recycle-shedded-animal-hair
There’s a lady in Belle River that weaves dog hair. It’s amazing!
Doesn’t the idea of a product that was designed to be thrown away bother you, Andrew? There must be a sustainable alternative (like Vicky mentioned, but not from the dollar store) that works well.
Vicky - Karen at the Hounds of Walkerville rocks! She is the first groomer I’ve ever been to and she’s proven her worth to me. Unfortunately, I hear that business isn’t as good as she was hoping and there’s a chance she’s moving. Tell all your dog-owning friends to go and visit and spend lots of money. I would hate to lose her from the ‘hood!
Too late, Chris, looks like the decision to leave Walkerville has been made. If my count is right, going back to 2003 when we first found Karen, this will be her fifth location in as many years.
460 Giles Blvd. East (per the company’s website). Walkerville’s loss is downtown’s gain… or is that the “near east side”?
Great point. We as a society become so detached from the lifecycle for the ‘things’ and ‘actions’ that fill our lives. No wonder so many find it difficult to see the impact they have.
Method has a product similar to the Swiffer called O-Mop, which uses compostable sweeper cloths and reusable mopping pads. I believe you can find them at Canadian Tire.
I say shave the dog!!!