No Job Too Small

While I am on record (in pieces I could link to but am too lazy) as someone who believes that the individual human heart changes from day-to-day and from decade-to-decade and that one of the biggest mistakes made by your average human is to think that there is a permanent state -- that one thing -- which will bring about constant happiness, I must say that I have narrowed down my own contentment to the necessity for one surprising ingredient: the accomplishment of a mundane task per day.

We arteests are supposed to be driven by wine and a passion that rockets like fiery brushstrokes -- red comets of molten jois de vivre -- slashed across the starry canvass of life. We (if the movies are right) would rather burn out than fade away; we choke to death upon our own vomit in Parisian bathtubs (with those little lion’s claw feet) with dog-eared copies of Rimbaud clinging wetly, melancholically, to our soapy breasts; we’re inspired by pain and loss; we stand at the bows of doomed cruise ships and declare ourselves kings of the world; we die young and live for sensations of the mind and of the body…

But I’ll be damned if I don’t feel pretty darned inspired after I empty the dish washer.

In the end, a day without writing a song or a post or a chapter is just about equally as bad as a day without vacuuming the rug. And I do find that the mundane tasks often lead to the more profound: an evening of puttering in the studio, wrapping cords and dusting, often turns itself into a tune. 

I shouldn't be surprised -- it is all quite Taoist, isn't it? I used to criticize my neighbors who seemed to take such pleasure in grooming their lawns. Now I get it. I mean, I'll never be that guy, but I get it -- as long as something profound follows up the weed-wacking.