Spot on, Susan. Sometimes I worry that so much of my life is taken up with those neutral actions; however, as a mom and now a grandmother, what could be neutral actions may also be merely mundane ones necessary to build relationships with my children and their children. For me, cooking is mundane. I don't love it. But I like to eat and so does my family. I try to make it worthwhile to myself by listening to podcasts. But, bleh. Who knows?
Thanks for this comment! Great thoughts. The natural lawyers would make a distinction between a mundane action, which we experience as dull, and a neutral action, which is an action that is neither reasonable (pointing at a good) or unreasonable (pointing at a bad). I also don't like cooking.... But cooking is reasonable, they would say, because it is pointed at health, part of the basic good of life - you need to eat dinner (as you say). So: mundane, certainly, but neutral no. Many reasonable actions are mundane in the doing of them, which is why we humans often choose not to do them and do actions that aren't reasonable instead... because often they are more gratifying.
But I love your point about listening to podcasts while you cook. I do that too! As we undertake actions toward the good that we don't necessarily enjoy, we use our reason to find ways to increase our pleasure in doing them. Here's to that!
Spot on, Susan. Sometimes I worry that so much of my life is taken up with those neutral actions; however, as a mom and now a grandmother, what could be neutral actions may also be merely mundane ones necessary to build relationships with my children and their children. For me, cooking is mundane. I don't love it. But I like to eat and so does my family. I try to make it worthwhile to myself by listening to podcasts. But, bleh. Who knows?
Thanks for this comment! Great thoughts. The natural lawyers would make a distinction between a mundane action, which we experience as dull, and a neutral action, which is an action that is neither reasonable (pointing at a good) or unreasonable (pointing at a bad). I also don't like cooking.... But cooking is reasonable, they would say, because it is pointed at health, part of the basic good of life - you need to eat dinner (as you say). So: mundane, certainly, but neutral no. Many reasonable actions are mundane in the doing of them, which is why we humans often choose not to do them and do actions that aren't reasonable instead... because often they are more gratifying.
But I love your point about listening to podcasts while you cook. I do that too! As we undertake actions toward the good that we don't necessarily enjoy, we use our reason to find ways to increase our pleasure in doing them. Here's to that!