etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…

i just finished doing my laundry.

it’s a simple chore and sometimes i really appreciate the simple, mechanical aspect of folding my clothes. i am reminded of the mythic sisyphus, as painted by camus: an absurd man, who is condemned by the gods to roll a giant boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down again (like the seemingly bottomless basket of shirts to be folded).

sisyphus was camus’ hero because he realized that he simply existed; the repetitive task was his entry to that existential self. he needn’t fool around searching for some grand truth, rather camus felt (i imagine) that it was better for him to embrace his futility and recognize his existence in that.

i am not an existentialist. i believe we should keep searching for truth and wisdom and love, but despite that i find something useful in returning to the mechanical and the realization of futility. we often find ourselves, in a struggle to not be restricted by our mortality, forgetting it all together.

boulders and greeks aside, i guess folding clothes and doing laundry helps keep me grounded, helps me to recognize the beating of drum, to understand my existential reality, the limits of that existence, that reality, and a certain degree of futility that follows. this true today.

as i returned to the laundry room one hour later–ready to call it a night–i arrived to find my clothes still damp. the dryer i had chosen earlier didn’t dry. so i moved my clothes to another dryer and waited another hour . i could have shouted all i wanted to but the clothes would still be wet and an hour would have still passed. so i took the route of prudence and i quietly rolled the boulder up the hill again.

that said, i must return to my position that existentialists only have their finger on one dimension in the understanding of life.

the other, or at least one other, is the dimension that community brings, the sort of community where everyone is a little more vulnerable to each other than to the rest of the world, where everyone shares in the joys and losses, where we feel comfortable being just a bit more frank, where there is a pervasive sense of reciprocal trust. we seek out many communities and some communities we can’t dodge. some tie us together by a bonding mechanism, some a bridging mechanism, yet each contribute to that web that makes the wide world seem just a little bit smaller and rolling the boulder just a bit more meaningful.

i feel like i’ve found those communities. not all of them of course. since they will come and go, blur and define. but definitely a good number. life at harvard is becoming more of a distinct experience as i find people with whom to share it.