chores

by definition and implication already pejorative - something that one does not want to do but has to do. which means that in some people's opinion, tasks such as cleaning house, or cooking, or changing nappies, are much maligned when labelled such, since clearly some are very happy to, for example, cook, not just when fancy strikes, but every day. the notion of tedium and unwillingness does not seem to plague their concerns.

likewise other activities, say driving one's car, exercise, even sex, can certainly qualify as, and for some, will decidedly be regarded as, chores of a much odious nature.

any task can be an encumbrance, i suppose.

indecisiveness

i've said my piece on choice (nov 2005) but it strikes me again how difficult it is for anyone to make a decision confronted with a future that is necessarily uncertain by nature (it is logically impossible to know whether one has made the right choice until one actually makes it - and even then the wait is often interminable), an absence of assurance or approval from appropriate agencies (sometimes we are desperate enough to require such affirmation from any source, however irrelevant - 'does this dress make me look fat' - ad nauseum), and perhaps a hard-to-read or unwilling-to-use moral compass (shoulda woulda coulda).

it is inexorable that a choice must necessarily come from a self. that's what i suspect people either try most to avoid, or fail to find.

retreat

i suppose that what holidays can also mean - a hiatus from judgement, comment and opinion. one refrains, one gives benefit of doubt, one is charitable, to the extent that one can be. a sanctuary from the ideas of others, from signal to noise.

best of all, a dialling down of the loudest, sometimes most strident and critical voice - a retreat from oneself.