Part I: Routine: I’m on autopilot. Where is my life?
Today I will shower, brush my teeth, drive my car, and sit in traffic. It strikes me that I’ve done each of these things thousands of times. I’ve spent hundreds of hours brushing my teeth and easily thousands of hours sitting on the 5 Freeway wondering if I’ll ever get where I’m going. And during all those hundreds and thousands of hours, I’ve expended almost no thought about the activities I was engaged in. They are my automatics. I brush because I’m supposed to. I’m on autopilot on SoCal freeways. Much of my day and life is routinized. Cognitively speaking, this makes sense. Our brains are constructed to allow us to learn how to do things (which requires effort), and to forget all about them once we’ve learned. Our brain picks up where our thinking leaves off and just does stuff for us so we don’t have to waste time thinking about it. Imagine how frustrating it would be if all the hours you spent commuting required as much concentration and effort as your first driving lesson required. You can thank your brain for making life easier and giving you the gift of routine.
But the gift of routine is a dangerous one. Human beings are biologically wired to routinize: to reduce any activity to a set of automatic procedures done in an autopilot style. Not all of life is meant to be routinized, and yet we are capable of making it so. For most of my life, I have gone to church every Sunday. I tend to park in the same place, arrive at the same time (late), sit in the same chairs, and, once the service starts, well, not much effort at routinizing is required. This habit extends to my faith life. I read or pray or study on autopilot, without attention, without applying myself.
Routine. We can reduce any area of life to a routine.
So how does ritual (and bear with me and assume it does) differ from routine? If our faith, our marriages, our jobs are not meant to be reducible to autopilot functions, what are they meant to be? Part II tomorrow. I’ve got to go pick up my dry cleaning.
March 29th, 2006 at 6:13 am
I think another aspect that routinizing helps me with is not only making sure I do things effectively like you mentioned…but also that I do them to begin with. Everyday after school I have to take attendance, but the other day I had a meeting right after school, and I totally forgot to enter it.
While I’m not sure if you going “religious” with the ritual half, I would say that routine really helps when it comes to necessary everyday tasks, like work and “life management.” I would agree that routine could be dangerous when it comes to your free time. How boring would it be if you routinized your Friday night, and did the exact same thing every week?
March 29th, 2006 at 10:53 am
To me the difference between routine and ritual is desire. My example is when I go to Angel games (any team will do, but let’s use the Angels). What may appear to some to be my Angel Game routine is not a routine by your definition, because I DO think about it. I enjoy every point on my game day schedule, from my two dogs with extra relish, to my people-watching lap around the stadium, to my lesser-known route to get back on the 5 after the game. They are all things I enjoy, and enjoy THINKING about even when I am not doing them.
I like the “auto-pilot” term for routine and then I would take the “manual controls” view for ritual.
I’m probably completely off from where you will go with it, but that is what came to mind.
March 29th, 2006 at 11:01 am
On the contrary, I’m looking for a few more people’s free associations on this issue before I blog on Part II. I’ve not quite decided what I will say yet.
March 29th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
I would even expand on Kevin’s interpretation (which I like). Especially in regards to religious activites, rituals are done for the meaning. Kevin said he does all that stuff because he like’s it, but I bet it’s even more than that. His grandiose rituals make the baseball game more than just a game, it makes it an experience. I’ll think he’ll agree, just expanding on the idea of liking something a lot.
When it comes to religion it’s pretty obvious why ritual can take on a very important role. If we take commumion, cross ourselves, pray, or whatever the ritual…I think we as humans like the importance of the meaning we place on that. Something like that.
March 29th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
I do agree… good stuff.