ritual versus routine
For a while now I've wanted to write about the importance of ritual. I'm not talking about those gimmicky self help kind of rituals, "I tried _'s morning routine for a month and now I make more money". I'm talking about finding little moments in your day that feel special or sacred, and holding onto them. I feel like so many people buy in to all these routines for maximal productivity, but why is productivity the ultimate virtue in this instance? People talk about how they're "happier" because they're more productive. They swear by waking up at 4AM and taking cold showers and eating wheatgrass for breakfast, using planners and dopamine detoxing and bullet journals. That's all cool and good, but there's a reason I use the word "ritual" and not "routine". Does any of that really feel "sacred"?
I find that there are certain things that feel spiritual to me. Special. I try to notice these things, and cling to them, hold onto them, make them part of my life. This is ritual, not routine.
uncovering moments that feel special, or "sacred"
I will share some examples from my own life, just to kind of communicate what I mean.
Listening to Rachmaninoff, for example. The first time I heard his music, it was Opus 32 no. 10, his prelude in B minor. Vladimir Horowitz was the pianist, and I think I cried. I had never felt such a spiritual, visceral, sacred feeling from any other piece of music; I was bewitched. I felt like Rachmaninoff truly understood some of my extreme emotional states, his music was so turbulent and morose. This was confirmed on a completely separate occasion; I was laying on a bed and listening to the radio. I had zero idea I was listening to Rachmaninoff, but his music came on the radio and I was stunned, catatonic, transfixed, for 30 minutes. Isle of the Dead, one of his symphonic works. After it ended the radio woman said "that was Rachmaninoff" and I was like. Two separate times have I been totally bewitched by him. Rachmaninoff understands me, or maybe I understand him. Somtimes it feels like nobody else gets it. But he understands.
Another sacred-feeling moment for me is waking up long before my body naturally wakes me up, when the sun is just rising. I find that if I wake up before the sun rises, or very shortly after sunrise, there's a certain picturesque emotion that I feel upon seeing early morning sunlight pushed through my blinds. Almost everyone is asleep, but I'm awake, and I get to appreciate these few moments of beauty in the world. I don't know how to describe it, it's this weird charm that isn't found elsewhere.
Mugs. I cannot overly emphasize the power of the mug. If you sip on coffee throughout the morning and day, you will spend hours looking at the mug. If you're a coffee drinker, you must get a mug you love. You must. I spent hours and hours searching for my mugs. Some of them I even had custom printed. It makes the coffee taste better. I love coffee, but I won't even drink coffee if it's not in one of my mugs. Sometimes I bring my mug to coffee shops so I can drink coffee out of my favorite mugs. Each morning my mug may change depending on my mood. When I travel I pack mugs. Mugs are a HUGE part of the morning ritual.
Physical music is another huge thing for me. There's this weird charm that comes with knowing that it will be very difficult to find your place in the album. It might take several minutes of scrolling to find a song on a cassette. If the vinyl record has finished playing, good luck skipping to 2:33 into a song. It really forces me to pay attention to a song and really appreciate the good parts before they're gone, because I won't be able to go back and replay the good part in an immediate fashion. I have a bunch of cassette tapes, mostly folk and dungeon synth.
crafting the ritual from these moments
So how does one integrate all these moments into their life? I don't think it has to, or should, be a routine; if you do it every day on principle, it might lose its lustre. Rituals are spiritual, not habitual.
For me, once in a while I'll drink coffee with Rachmaninoff. I wake up early. Make myself a cup of sludge, coffee that makes my father gag. Fill my favored mug, plop down at my desk. Play some Rachmaninoff and just listen attentively. Rachmaninoff has four piano concertos; each one is different. Rach 1 (opus 1) is very angry, you can really feel his burning resentment for Zverev, Rach 2 (opus 18) is turbulent and grandiose, 3 and 4 are a lot lighter. Rach 5 is ethereal and evanescent; it feels almost like it doesn't exist. I don't think I ever listen to Rach 4. I've been getting into Rach 2 again after months of only listening to 1 or 3. Nobody likes Rach 1 very much but I like it probably as much as Rach 3. Opus 23 and opus 32 are also top picks for me. Opus 29 is up there too, but it's not very relaxing.
My intention is to only do this when it feels right. This is not a routine, and I don't adhere to this ritual like it's a formula. Sometimes I go days or weeks without waking up super early, at times I'm too tired to listen to music. But I return to this ritual reguarly.
must these moments be constrained to a ritual?
Some things external to my ritual feel sacred; reading Sophocles, for example, or Aeschylus, or Shakespeare, those books gave me full-body chills. If Shakespeare is special to me, why not create a ritual of some kind that involves reading Shakespeare? For me, reading is something that has to be different, regularly mixed-up. I read in different places each time I read, I have different drinks with me, sometimes I have a snack, sometimes I have music. If I were to try to create some sort of ritual out of reading, it would feel too formulaic, restrictive.
My point is that the process of crafting a ritual should not be a prerequisite for enjoying moments that feel special; not all special moments require a ritual to be enjoyed. The end goal, in my opinion, is making the monotony of life feel more special and meaningful and "sacred". Creating some kind of ritual that combines special moments can do this, but it should never be a goal unto itself in such a way that it is restrictive of how you enjoy yourself. Ultimately, you have to decide which things to incorporate into a personal ritual, and which things to leave out.