Louis Malle's Humain, Trop Humain

I would often get frustrated with mechanically going about my daily routines at work. My efforts to spice things up by dreaming up novel ways of doing things has paid off sometimes, but also back-fired at other times. Nevertheless, mechanical work always made me sad.

On the other hand (and quite contradictorily), I would look at animals and the (seemingly mechanical / instinctive) way they would go about their lives and understand the uncluttered way of their lives. I always thought most animals in the wild are graceful.

Watching Malle's Humain, Trop Humain has clarified this apparent contradiction for me. Humans can go about their tasks mechanically, and yet be graceful. Somehow, accepting the way of life and living it without comment, in a sort of dispassionate way, can make what I would have thought mundane and abhorrent quite graceful. Malle's tremendous respect for the the lives of ordinary people portrays the most mechanical of work (in an automotive plant) appear graceful and makes the viewer respect the people performing these monotonous unthinking jobs. Come to think of it, intelligence and thought can only take us so far. It can't make us do work. And without doing work, we can't be healthy individuals. Work has to have the quality of mechanical and monotony (what may also be called rigour). It is impossible for a person to just think. That would just make one a dreamer and one day you find 10 years have got behind you.

So, there. I need to accept some aspects of daily life to be monotonous, mechanical. Especially, at work. And perform them without comment, dispassionately. Just like buying weekly groceries.