I Love to Wash Things

I love to wash things. Dishes, a bathroom, a kitchen ventilator, clothes, except cats, I like to wash anything. So I sometimes wonder, in my past lives, I was not just a cat and a beheaded monk but also a raccoon…

I especially like to do dishes. Finishing one after another, my hands can easily feel the result of my work.

However, as our Thai maid feels that I steal her job, I cannot do dishes now.

So I wash every evening my work uniform drenched with my sweats after the garbage-collection job.

Even though I have a washing machine, I use my hands and the cheapest laundry soap from the mainland China. If I used the washing machine, I could do more meaningful things, but I spend the majority of time, from morning to evening, doing meaningful things. And these things are my duties. (Although one can choose our jobs, it is no longer his/her choice whether s/he works or not today after a job has been chosen.) However, since washing clothes at night is my choice, I am quite willing to do.

While I wash clothes, my hands works and my brain can take a rest for a while. I can free my unconscious mind from the tyranny of conscious mind. It is a good way of stress-reduction. In addition, I feel as if my heart and soul were also cleansed as dirt goes away from my clothes. Actually, a very simple work like doing dishes or laundry is a very effective meditation. It has “the usefulness of uselessness,” which Lao-tzu once said…