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Plum's avatar

Doing dishes by hand is underrated. So is pulling weeds. Both allow me the time and mind space to contemplate aimlessly the cosmos of existence. Or remember what I was supposed to do that day. Never lasts long enough, thankfully, to find any meaningful answers.

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Robin Wilding's avatar

I'm glad I'm not the only one pondering the cosmos while pulling weeds. And you're right, they never seem to last long enough.

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John Dolan's avatar

Perhaps doing the dishes is one of the many purposes of life?

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Robin Wilding's avatar

Perhaps, who really knows 😆

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Kevin Thomas's avatar

…dishwashers are highly overrated

…so are some people’s progeny

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Robin Wilding's avatar

Agreed, on both!

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Larry Huber's avatar

I think archaeologists often use dishes as ways of defining when humanoids started using reusable implements for life-sustaining nourishment. You don't need dishes to eat most pieces of fruit. But a prepared meal requires a bowl or plate.

So you were pondering the purpose of life while dishes were pondering the purpose of people.

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Robin Wilding's avatar

Well damn...mind blown, Larry.

😆😆

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Michael Manoff's avatar

Cosmic ants in an alien experiment…..their version of Netflix 🤣😩😎😜🥳🤔🙃☺️😕🤣👽👾🛸

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Robin Wilding's avatar

Yup, we're just intergalactic streaming fodder for earth-based reality tv.

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Morgan OCailleigh's avatar

Monty Python figured it out.

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Robin Wilding's avatar

Yes they did hehe

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Linda Blatnik's avatar

I remember doing dishes,

listening to the clack clack of the dishes and looking out the window.

It was almost a meditative state. Then, if someone dried them while standing next to you, you had a nice silent co-ordinated conversation.

Now I put them in the dishwasher. Still got the clack clack, nothing else.

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Kay-El's avatar

I think the answer can be found in the song by The Tubes “What Do You Want From Life”.

I prefer my worms to stay in the garden working their magic on my soil. I know there’s a RFK Jr joke in here somewhere as well.

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Sheila (of Ephemera)'s avatar

42!!

The point of life is simply to live it, however, the only thing that ultimately matters are relationships. People will remember us for how we made them feel.

Art is the only thing that lasts. 💕

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Liza Blue's avatar

Without a dishwasher you have more time to produce such lofty notions. Here are my insights from a loading a dishwasher i.e. probably 15 minutes loading, 5 minutes unloading:

- God damn it, rinse the egg yolk off the plate before leaving it in the sink for someone else to load.

- Damn those knives are sharp. Load them in blade down.

- My husband and I have different strategies for loading the dishwasher. Mine is better. He disagrees.

- The dog will slash his tongue unless we load those knives blade down.

- I think this spatula was a wedding gift from 44 years ago.

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Robin Wilding's avatar

😆😆😆 Excellent ponderments Liza.

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Mark Hayes's avatar

I'm with your husband, no woman I've ever been involved with could load a dishwasher properly. This isn't to say that women aren't capable of achieving almost anything they set their minds to but the only exception to that, in my experience is loading the dishwasher.

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Danielle Amory's avatar

The purpose of life? Get through it as best you can and then do the laundry or weed the garden or wash the dishes. Simple.😉

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Lizzie Lizard Brain's avatar

This was delightful! I grinned when I saw "42" and thought, "The meaning escapes me, but the purpose is to survive long enough that you can take 3 minutes, appreciate someone you enjoy, and recognize you appreciate some of the same books." But about that meaning - it could mean I was a bad ant queen in a previous life and was demoted to barely human with a touch of hummingbird to gain clarity and discipline in this iteration. No - that's absurdly blurry.

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Robin Wilding's avatar

I love how absurdly blurry your mind is Lizzie 😆😆😆

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Mark Hayes's avatar

Kurt Vonnegut had a recurring character in several of his novels named Kilgore Trout, a failing science fiction writer whose masterpieces usually were published in hardcore porn magazines between the photos.

A science fiction writer (I think Phillip José Farmer) decided to write a Kilgore Trout novel with Vonnegut's enthusiastic approval (as I recall, Vonnegut said to go for it but it HAS to be sleazy). Thus was created Venus on the Halfshell by Kilgore Trout. The book was absolutely ridiculous pulp, like something that was published in the fifties but MUCH raunchier, imagine threeways with not one but two species of aliens and nobody's genitals quite lined up. It was like that. The main narrative arch was that a man, after the destruction of his planet was searching the universe looking for the creator in order to ask him one question: Why are we born just to live, suffer and die?

Now before I give the answer, I need to note that this was written several years before Douglas Adams wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Once he found The Creator, our hero forthrightly waited for the answer and when it came it was simply: Why not?

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Robin Wilding's avatar

Kilgore Trout was a great character from Vonnegut--loved him! (Both the writer and character). I'd never heard about this spin-off book though.

Thanks for the synopsis though, as I doubt I'd find it or have time to read it. "Why not" haha, nice.

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Mark Hayes's avatar

I read it in the late 70s after finding a beat up copy in a used bookstore and crying out "Kilgore Trout"!

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Robin Wilding's avatar

What a great find! That's the heart of used bookstores right there.

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Mark Hayes's avatar

Lol. But now I'm all about the Kindle. Moved multiple full bookshelves one too many times...

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Dan Levine's avatar

You know I would ask you, Robin.

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Patricia Anne Boone's avatar

Love your post!! Jason recommended it to me and I think it’s pretty good!! 👍

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Robin Wilding's avatar

Thanks Patricia! :)

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Andy Clark's avatar

Does the concept of reincarnation change any of the options.

I'd suggest the list remains the same, only with the extra spice of a bit of jeopardy.

And if the concept of reincarnation happens to be correct, would it add a further dimension of purpose, but that's a whole other can of (reincarnated) worms.

I think it's not the religious option, as i don't know of additional scheme, rhyme or reason. Just nothing so simple as YOLO, just more red pill nuance.

No wonder the blue pill is popular.

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