Ritual Vs Routine…

When I ride each day, at least a couple of times, often early on, I think to myself…

Well, here I go again. Routine.

On the surface that might seem like an acknowledgment of drudgery, but it’s not. It’s an acknowledgment to prepare for ritual. And that’s the thing about routine — it can often seem like drudgery until it’s converted to ritual. That takes place in the noggin.

Lighting a candle and saying a prayer we think of as ritual.

Setting up the coffee pot before bed, cleaning the toilet or even exercise, we consider routine.

The older I get, the more Confucian I become.

Ritual and routine are the glue and the mortar that have held societies together for millennia.   They also serve to keep individuals centered.

There is a blurry line between the ideals of ritual and routine. One might argue that ritual is more rooted in reverence, while routine is rooted in obligation. To me, the words are intertwined —synonymous, though I prefer the term ritual and I use it most often when it comes to doing things on a regular basis.

When one hour bleeds into the next, when the lines that separate the days blur and when I’m not so sure what month I am in  due to my immersion in the mundane, I attempt to triangulate my position by whatever ritual I might be engaged in at the time.   Pretty soon, I know where I am and why.

If I am fortunate, and I most always am, my days are constructed from one ritual extending right into the next, all day long. And whatever might seem like drudgery — routine to me; housework, bookkeeping, even personal hygiene, I try to embrace those tasks as ritual, thus keeping them more reverent.

And if whatever ritual I might be involved in at a given time is executed with a little bit of intelligence, discretion and care, a positive outcome will most often be the result, as well as a sense of higher purpose.

There’s a fine line between ritual and routine, and I’ve eliminated the guesswork by considering all of it ritual.

This is what I think about when I ride… Jhciacb

Today’s Ride…

Bike: Bomer The Kreeps
29 miles
1,325’ climbing
16.6 mph avg
2,000 calories
Today’s earworm: The End Is Not In Sight (Amazing Rhythm Aces)

Whether you ride a bike or not, thank you for taking the time to ride along with me this week. If you haven’t already, please scroll up and subscribe. Oh, and there is this from The Amazing Rhythm Aces… Enjoy…!