“Ever hear of a ritual sacrifice?” “I don’t get it…”
Intro
The scene above is my favorite scene from Uncle Buck—John Candy at his best—threatening his niece’s boyfriend, Bug. Ritualistic sacrifices aside, I’ve reflected a lot this past week on the nature of this lifestyle change I’ve made. I wondered: “Have my habits changed? Have my rituals changed? What’s the difference anyway?” It dawned on me that I wasn’t aware of the nuances of each. I knew there was overlap between the two, but always believe rituals to be more formal, more meaningful. Habits were sometimes good but most times bad and are on a smaller scale than rituals. Well, I did some digging and the hole I went down was deeper than expected.
Rituals
The best definition I could find for rituals describes them as follows: “Tearing out a beating heart and screaming KALI MAAAA.”
I lied.
A ritual is something done repeatedly with a purpose that is outside of the action itself. Typically they encompass multiple habits. Rituals tend to follow a system. Generally patterns of ritual are developed from an exterior source, and adopted for reasons that may have nothing to do with decision making. Anthropologists have written about ritual at length and I will spare you here. Just know there’s WAY more to ritual than explained within this post.
Examples of national rituals:
Saying the pledge of allegiance when the first bell range in school
Presidential inaugurations / swearing in ceremonies
Eating turkey on Thanksgiving
Personal rituals:
On Christmas day the family will always open our stockings first. Without fail they will contain lottery tickets & a gift or two from one of our dogs (they always know what to buy). Then we’ll move to the tree, get all nested in a spot, and Dad will hand out one present at a time.
Every time I get to Crested Butte, I will immediately walk down to the river—bringing whoever is with me in tow—and dunk my head in the river. Practically it wakes me up after a long day of travel. Metaphorically it is a cleansing in preparation for enjoying a stint in paradise.
Habit
A habit is something done repeatedly for the purpose of performing the action itself. Typically they are more singular in focus & scope. Habits are not systematic. Generally, you make the decision consciously one time, then stop making but continue doing. Habits become something that operate on autopilot. They can be tough to change chiefly because they can’t be seen.
Examples of good habits:
Exercising regularly
Making to do lists
Drinking coffee
Getting up on time
Examples of bad habits:
Smoking cigarettes (or Juuls, you millenials)
Instagram zone-outs
Using filler words
Watching TV while eating dinner
So what’s changed?
Thus far it has been an amalgamation of both habits and rituals, the latter being more surprising. From the start I was eagerly awaiting to see what habits would be broken. Some of these were indeed lurking in the shadows.
Uncovered:
Every evening I’ve felt an innate compulsion to queue up an episode of something to watch while eating dinner.
Once 9pm hits, I’ve felt an overwhelming desire to just throw something on TV to zone out to. I think my brain just wants to go into standby mode after the day is behind me.
After turning off my alarm, I previously would: read any text messages, check the weather, read Morning Brew, check Facebook, browse Reddit, then muster up enough gumption to get out of bed.
Changes made:
I now read in a ritualistic fashion. I will brew a cup of tea, put on a jazz, Debussey, or Chopin playlist, open the screen door, and settle into my reading chair.
Sunday is my walk of atonement day after long weekends of drinking lots of…water. I’ll throw on shorts & a t shirt, grab my backpack and water bottle, pop on the noise cancelling headphones, and queue up an audiobook. Then it’s an hour and a half walk around the lake, usually stopping at Trader Joe’s to grab groceries for the week.
I cook way more now. I found I needed something to occupy the time I’d usually doddle around on my phone while at home.
Parting note
This weekend marks the beginning of the end for Game of Thrones. This is one of the few hold-outs that does NOT release all the episodes at once. I argue that this is a positive. It turns the act of watching the show into a ritual. Many of you will have watch parties that center on Sunday nights. You’ll get together with a close group of friends, talking theories over drinks and dinner before, then tune in. Afterwards you’ll have a debriefing session and then slowly get excited for next week’s airing.
Not many of these shows still exist. To me, they are the real shows. When Stranger Things is released in July, I will undoubtedly binge it over a day or two. At that point is it really a show? Or just a ten hour movie? So when you’re seated on a couch next to some close friends getting ready to watch the magic unfold—savor it. You’ll have just a few weeks to enjoy those special moments before it’s back to binge watching. Enjoy the ritual: all our watches end soon enough.