Don't give in to temptation

When I publicly propose a task for my perpetual calendar, the Malendrier, and K grabs it, this is the result...

Context element : this tedious task combines absurdity, stubbornness and resistance to boredom, mindfulness and meditation. I imagined it a few years ago, after watching the documentary The Artist is presentdedicated to the great performer Marina Abramovic.

Conclusion: there's a whole world, including an intimate one, in a simple handful of rice.

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A few days ago, I saw that you wrote a message on X (formerly Twitter) about a task as punishment for the next session: sorting a handful of grains of rice while having a vibrating dildo.

Intrigued by this task, I thought I'd give it a try and see how I felt.

I started by taking a handful of rice and placing it on the table. At that point, when I saw the pile of rice, I told myself that it was going to take a long time, but that I had to do it however long it took.

Next, I inserted my dildo and turned it on to start vibrating. I set the vibration mode to the least intense given the length of the task.

I sat down and started sorting the seeds one by one with tweezers. I arranged them in columns of 5 so I could count them more easily at the end. For the first few moments, I wondered what the effects of the dildo would be over time. Deconcentration? Lack of precision and rigor? Rising excitement? Embarrassment?

After 30-45 minutes, looking at the remaining grains, I felt like I was never going to finish my task. I couldn't figure out whether I'd sorted 20%, 15%, 10% or even 5% of rice grains. I realized that the hardest part was going to be in my head, and that it was going to be very easy to get discouraged.

After an hour, the dildo stopped so I pressed the button on the remote control to reactivate it without success. I immediately realized that the battery was dead. Whether the dildo vibrates or not, I've decided I'm going to keep it until the end.

After two hours, I was still concentrating on picking up the grains of rice one by one, even though I had to work on my mind not to give in to the temptation to stop in the middle of the task.

It took me 2 hours and 28 minutes, stopwatch in hand, to finish sorting these grains of rice. At that moment, I felt a sense of satisfaction at having finally finished the task and seeing the grains of rice arranged in rows. Obviously, as I got up from the chair, touching the table was out of the question, as I risked putting all that work into the water. I counted them and ended up with 2080 grains of rice.

In retrospect, the dildo didn't bother me that much. Perhaps I should have been more optimistic and turned on the most intense vibration mode, or even activated the back and forth to make this task more demanding. As far as I'm concerned, I was surprised and pleased to have succeeded in putting my brain into off-mode, which enabled me to overcome my impatience.

In the end, I put those grains of rice back in the packet, because obviously you don't play with food at the risk of being punished.