I have a terrible affliction. This is something that has pursued me my entire life, as far back as I can remember. It is a malady, let’s call it a pathology, that diminishes my life both materially, in wasting so many of my waking hours, and psychologically, imprisoning me in a dank cell from which there seems no escape.

My affliction is this: whilst accomplishing routine household tasks (peeing, washing-up, brushing teeth, pressing the button on my espresso coffee machine and HOLDING IT DOWN), I count. 60 seconds for the coffee, 100 seconds for the teeth. Units of 60 for peeing and 25 for the washing-up. My chores are measured out by internal chronometre. This dread pathology means that I annul whole swathes of life, processing it through the grey anonymity of numbers.

My resolution? Thoughts! Observation! Life! Reject the tyranny of the internal chronometre. Embrace the stuff of life. The delightful whirr of the coffee machine! The charming arc of pee-fall! The pleasures of hands bathing in the warmth of washing-up water! Who says the modern world holds no domestic pleasures for us?

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