Cleaning is quite annoying. For much of my life, I never needed to clean, because I had a higher tolerance for dirty spaces than the other members of the household. Thus, long before I was motivated enough to get the space clean myself, someone else would do it.
Like everything nice, it didn't last. Eventually, I was pressured into agreeing to do some cleaning. Like all external motivational systems, they did not last. Within a week of when the agreement was first made, my parents got lazy at enforcing the rules, and within another week, they forgot that an arrangement even existed. But still, like my other work, off and on, I would be forced to clean.
And then I realized how annoying cleaning was, and why I was delegated the task in the first place. Repetitive motions and the knowledge that the work was never done. Endless frustration at other people messing up my clean area. It was a nice role reversal, for normally it was me who contaminated the sacred ground.
Along with other reasons, our house is a mess. Seeing other houses is like seeing into a whole different world. Although, I suspect that our household's habit of furious cleaning when guests arrive is shared by other households as well.
When I clean, I feel connected to the past somehow. Forget the ideals of the hunter-gatherers or the proud warriors of the bronze age, the true connection to the tradition that I had was the feeling of cleaning house.
At least until the ROOMBA stops getting stuck. Then its back to the internet.
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