Oooof. This is a question I constantly struggle with, having spent a lot of time trying to break bad habits. But I do think "habit" and "devotion" might be related, and growing up in a Bah'ai family, the idea of variance-in-repetition (like other traditions, too, chanting numbers, counting beads, all that kind of stuff) validates that devotion to habit can be a very healthy thing.
But then also I remember the poet Joan Retallack paraphrasing John Cage: Habit is always tempered by chance operations. And I believe that. I'll do my routines to keep my compulsive mind happy, but try to be open -- or make openings? -- for randomness to enter in. Yin and yang and all that!
Oooof. This is a question I constantly struggle with, having spent a lot of time trying to break bad habits. But I do think "habit" and "devotion" might be related, and growing up in a Bah'ai family, the idea of variance-in-repetition (like other traditions, too, chanting numbers, counting beads, all that kind of stuff) validates that devotion to habit can be a very healthy thing.
But then also I remember the poet Joan Retallack paraphrasing John Cage: Habit is always tempered by chance operations. And I believe that. I'll do my routines to keep my compulsive mind happy, but try to be open -- or make openings? -- for randomness to enter in. Yin and yang and all that!
yes yes yes exactly this