Anti-anti-routine blues

We are all held by delicate threads that call themselves routine but are in fact the reason we are able to climb into our beds at night without anarchy destroying the fabric of our lives. This may all sound a little bit like hypochondria for the existentialist but, after living for some years on this planet, I know this to be true.

I often think about routine. And the conclusions I reach reflect my age. My resistance to routine used to be the badge of youth. I would stand up against the need to fulfill the basic step step of life because it meant buying into mediocrity. If I followed routine I would become the epitome of suburbia. I would have bought into the life that I actively disagreed with. Why would I want to be a replica of a million other subjugated women? Rebellion against routine was part of my cry for an individual voice.

But I did not know the truth. Human beings follow the basics of scientific law. Without a bit of moulding, a squidgeon of direction, we move towards lethargy. We could probably sit all day on our well-rounded little bottoms if sustenance was all sorted. To be fair, we would probably need some entertainment. A thousand books and a world of escapist visuals leave us occupied for hours... for a lifetime. But then the internal cuckoo clock juts out his head. (Maybe her head?) And we look at all we have not achieved and we sigh.

While there is drama in using the plural, I should stand up for what I am. I can waste away hours and days in a world without routine. When I am faced with no structure, I drift. If I'm lucky I am thrown into interesting situations but that means leaving it up to chance. And chance isnt always kind. Routine brings a form of much-needed structure into my life. However I only learnt this in my late thirties.

Youth was about carrying the beacon for anti-establishment. It was a small light but it belonged to me. That I could decide what time I brushed my teeth felt like a victory. While heroes were destroying injustices I was fighting my own battles in suburbia. They felt as big.

There is a cliché: sometimes you need to lose the battle to win the war. I think maybe this is a bit like that. I fought desperately against routine and truly believed I was part of the last outpost. But routine is part of commitment. Commitment is part of defining a life that transcends description. So once my pithy little brain had got round that concept I am now in the process of trying to create a routine that is part of my individuality and that allows me to move onto larger feats.

it isn't easy.

I have to retrain myself and my need to rebel. But I have learnt that without routine it is not that easy to achieve my goals, to balance my life, to steady my unquiet mind. Routine is in its own way a western meditation device.

I want to be more than I am.