Saturday, November 8, 2008

More on Homebodity

I headed out this morning to the post office with a couple of important things to mail, not the least of which had to do with Cambridge Parking Permit Season. I spent the trip thinking about what it is that makes people so different - I know plenty of folks who speak of going crazy if they're "stuck" inside for too long. It's so isolating, they say.

I seem to get happier and more social when I stay home for long periods of time. This isn't news to me, really, but every once in a while it inspires me to imagine how the world might be if we found a way to have everyone operating optimally - with the outgoing types out there... going... and the less so less so, etc. By extension we'd probably have folks keeping busy at things that didn't make them want to lose their lunch with boredom or other distaste. I know Jonathan's thinking that none of the chores would ever get done that way - the dishes and the trash pick-up, etc. But I'm living proof to the contrary as far as the dishes are concerned, and I've seen guys hopping on and off of city trash trucks who are in much much much better moods than a lot of the artists I know, so I'm not so sure...

2 comments:

Jonathan B. said...

I agree that some people are truly happy working as garbage collectors, but wouldn't it be uncharacteristically nice of the universe to ensure that the number of people needed to collect the world's garbage would be in exact proportion to the number of people who would be happy doing it? I'm not even sure which direction the two are off, but it would be a miracle if they were the same.

Anonymous said...

It would. There are also all the questions about whether or not it all really needs to come down to happiness, but I always worry about the chores getting done and it seems like they would if people didn't mind doing them. Or at least didn't hate doing them as much as I tend to assume people do. (Based on my own distaste for the ones I hate, of course.)