The Next Joy
by Catherine Viel
Posted on June 20, 2023
June 19, 2023
Instead of being content to gaze dreamily out the sliding door at the glorious, sunny morning after months of mostly fog, my mind pokes me to add more water to the cats’ food. I dutifully arise and do so, and have to deliberately resist the next assignment. As long as you’re in the kitchen, you might as well empty the dishwasher…
It’s humbling (and irritating) to realize how much of my day is filled with “as long as you’re here, you might as well…”. While some tasks are nonnegotiable, like making food, everything surrounding such nonnegotiables is open to interpretation.
*****
My first impulse, that unfiltered call of the heart, was to seek the sun. But the dreary taskmaster disguised as “necessary and beneficial activities” stepped in before I even got up from my chair.
This is a lifelong habit, not a temporary aberration. I reckon it dates to the days of “you have to do your homework before you can watch TV” and “you won’t get any dessert unless you finish all your dinner.”
I find it fascinating and bizarre that the habit of “duty before fun” that was imposed in childhood still rules me 60-some years later.
*****
But I do feel some things need to be reevaluated. Acting as if we’re about to receive a surprise visit from Good Housekeeping at any moment is not a relaxing way to live. I’ve noticed that if I consider settling in with my frivolous but fun novel, or my tarot deck, that activity gets subsumed beneath the important task of putting things away.
Important according to whom? The taskmaster of the mind is a terrific companion, but not when it’s in the driver’s seat.
*****
My mind reaches toward all the tasks that it remembers need doing. It’s so tempting to follow its dictates. Compliance with internalized programming is the easier path, the one I usually take.
Did socialization—or indoctrination, some might say—encourage me to accept this grim taskmaster? I find it easier to resist blatant control tactics like mask wearing and mandatory vaccines than inner promptings that feel organic, but upon reflection, show themselves for the grafted-on, parasitic influence that they are.
I put this writing away. I take a deep breath, open the door, and step out into the sun.
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