I feel the same. There's nothing that makes you feel your life is pointless as much as doing chores. Recurring, unending, and unpleasant, all they amount to is treading water.
I can't imagine a state of mind where one could find meaning of life in this. It feels a bit similar to finding meaning in death, which I personally consider a large-scale case of Stockholm syndrome.
You're assuming that these are unpleasant to everyone?
I don't find washing the dishes, mopping floors, etc unpleasant at all. It's a welcome break. Moreso when it's your _own_ floor, and you take pride in the environment you live in.
Washing the car, for example, I find a good way to connect with the fruits of my labour, a level of respect for the things I own.
Sure, doing it 8 hours a day every day for a full time job with no other sense of purpose would be soul destroying, that's not what most people are talking about I think.
It's interesting, though, because based on those I know, there's sort of a pattern here.
Some people want everything to be a service - take out food, rental apartment, Uber, etc etc. Some want to feel some measure of self-sufficiency. And there's not really much room inbetween, it seems.
> You're assuming that these are unpleasant to everyone?
I guess? The concept of them not being unpleasant is... alien to me.
> And there's not really much room inbetween, it seems.
I consider myself to be in between. I'm a strong advocate of products over services, because services come with undesirable things like relationships with third parties, subscriptions (vs. one-time payments), and terms of service that restrict what you can do with things. I prefer ownership, but I also strive to minimize any and all maintenance burden related to that ownership, because I consider it a negative aspect.
Could this be a nomenclature issue? Like, I'm defining "unpleasant" to mean really horrible, something actively negative, like e.g. cleaning up vomit might be, whereas you just mean "not that interesting / fun"?
I tend to find that my attitude towards these sorts of tasks varies depending on how stressed I am. A 60-hour workweek and a commute makes anything like that feel horrible. A more balanced life and it's the opposite, I like cleaning, I've taken the world around me and improved it.
It seems to me that you must have a line somewhere - like gardening for example, is that a maintenance task, or is that different because it's not actually necessary? Decorating the interior of a house?
> Like, I'm defining "unpleasant" to mean really horrible, something actively negative, like e.g. cleaning up vomit might be, whereas you just mean "not that interesting / fun"?
I mean something in between. Not necessarily causing revulsion or mental pain, but still less preferable than doing nothing at all.
> I tend to find that my attitude towards these sorts of tasks varies depending on how stressed I am.
That's definitely true for me too.
> It seems to me that you must have a line somewhere - like gardening for example, is that a maintenance task, or is that different because it's not actually necessary? Decorating the interior of a house?
Depends. I'd definitely prefer for the garden to maintain itself by magic instead of having to micromanage it, and having no other option, I'd probably turn gardening into a set of half-baked electronics hobby projects. Decorating the house? That's a one-off task, a means to an end. Still, while I'd happily decorate the thing in CAD software[0], I'd happily pay someone to assemble and put the new stuff according to instructions. I've assembled and moved enough furniture in my life for that to become boring.
(A somewhat related example that's current for me: Kerbal Space Program. Your first couple dozen orbital insertions, your first couple dozen manual orbital intercepts and dockings, are all super fun. But after a while it gets so repetitive that you wish for a way to automate it. When your goals shift from "let's land on the Mun for the first time" to "I want to send 250-ton spaceship to Duna for long-term planetary studies", you start realizing that doing a dozen launches to assemble it in orbit is a chore, and you don't want to spend the hours required to do it.)
Maybe it's the "mastery" thing? There's this well-known "Frustration/Boredom" chart floating around the Internet, see e.g. [1]. Most maintenance tasks don't require too much skill for good enough results, so with near-zero challenge, repetitive nature, and goal being mostly treading water, it's just one big grind. People probably have different thresholds of tolerance for that.
Another issue is whether this is even self-directed. Living with other people means that you may be asked to do maintenance tasks way before you yourself think they're needed. In these cases, I find the work doubly frustrating.
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[0] - which I recently did, to accommodate our newborn.
I agree with the feeling, and I want to add a few things to try to help both sides understand.
I don't think it's appropriate to say that "life is made of". Admittedly, "life is full of", and if you can enjoy those menial tasks, reach that "zen" level as some say, that's great. In that case it's true that your "life is made of", and if you can enjoy it, much better for you. The less you need to live happy, the easier it's to achieve that happiness.
And in fact, most of us could learn a bit of that. Accept that we have to deal with those things, and at least try to not torture ourselves with it, enjoy it as much as possible (even if in some cases it doesn't seem to amount to much).
All that being said, I think it's also easy to lose perspective when you manage to achieve a certain degree of happiness or comfortability through that kind of routine, or when you deeply believe in that idea. In particular, I believe that's a state that not everyone can reach, and I doubt it's a matter of being trained enough or trying hard enough. Some people just have a natural need to create, or explore, or need to actively fight and try to change the world they live in, or whatever. Sometimes, that comes from inside, in the same way as hunger, or your need to sleep.
This probably sounds hyperbolic. For most people, it probably is. But this is the kind of issue that you can only really understand if you personally live it, because it is a psychological need, and that's very hard to communicate to others who don't feel the same way.
In conclusion:
I absolutely believe those who say that they find meaning in a life like this. I actually think that most people can find meaning in a life like this, and I believe the social factor is the most relevant for most people's happiness.
But I also believe there's a lot of people who can't find meaning in a life like this, as much as they try, because they have other needs, and trying to supress them it's not only unreasonable, but a nice attempt at torture. I can understand the people that says that they would rather kill themselves. Hopefully this adds a bit more context.
It’s short anyway. Imagine the amount of time before your birth and after your death. In two-three generations no one will remember you. Maybe they will remember your name (if you do something important), but they will not remember you. Whatever you think is important, it is not much more important than doing dishes, cooking, gardening... it’s all irrelevant.
If that's life I may just as well kill myself.