Repetition (a psuedo-intellectual analysis)

day in, day out, the constant pirouettes of the same days exhaust even the finest of dancers

First of all, dear reader, I would like to raise an apology for my absence. I got caught up in the constant day to day of life and mainly just worked, listened to music, played the occasional video game, read a little, exactly what someone may expect from a gal like mines little life. My slice of purgatory I guess :p

Repetition is an interesting concept to me. The fact that we as people want to do the same things all the time is something that really confuses me, honestly. Usually with concepts such as this, you can trace it back to something primal we needed in some way, but repetition? Nothing really. If life was a set of repeating patterns that would be essentially be suicide to early humans, always on the move, or at least consistently hunting or gathering in different areas. Its just strange.

So what is the purpose? Is it due to fear of change? Perhaps to fit in? Is this a concept created by things like school and work, to eventually hardwire our brains to crave the same thing every day? I guess the only way to truly find out, to start, is to lay out these thoughts and elaborate as we continue on this journey.

Fear of Change

Arguably the first thought anyone will have for trying to answer this thought, fear of change is an extremely alluring contendor. The fact that we as humans are pretty bad at accepting new ways of thinking would of course allow us to think the same things every day, and doing the same actions. I'm also not necessarily the biggest fan of this answer, due to the fact that the fear of change is just kind of a cop out answer. Its like saying "I do something because I don't want to do something else" But why don't you want to do something else? It feels like a satisfactory answer until you really try to think what it means. So, at least for me, I'm striking this one out.

Blending In

So, if I need a reason, why not being part of the crowd? Doing what everyone else does would inherently begin to form a pattern, and it fits my aformentioned "backtracking it to something further" statement, with early humanity needing to appeal to its fellow man, and began to mimic each other. So why don't I like it? Because people simply don't try to fit in anymore, and repetition is arguably stronger than ever. In the modern age where individuality is essentially just a concept everybody holds dear (myself included) why would repetition exist in this world still? Just as a useless addition to culture we've grown past, like an appendix? I'm just simply not sold on this idea.

Capitalism

As any person stumped on a hard concept, I will aim my sights on capitalism, and in this case specifically a rigid, capitalist form of schooling/work. This feels strongest as something I can really sink my teeth into, because its such a simple answer: both school and work involve schedules, doing mainly the same thing every day, at the same time on the dot. You can then begin to mimic this form of living in your day to day life, subconsciously or not. This is what I believe to be the correct answer, while maybe not the only one. I believe it also has something to do with the dopamine seeking nature of our brains, and how easy it is to get sucked into things for long periods of time that are designed to maximize dopamine. If you are only ever doing one thing, that is technically a routine after all.

So I ask, dear reader: What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Can you trace routines back to a more primal need and i'm just missing it? What else would you like to see me write about?

yours always,