Routine is a constant threat to life as we know it, and to our freedoms. It strikes all sectors of life, threating to remove what makes it's special. We see routine setting in to anything that we repeat constantly, and the results are often quite negative. Routine breeds bordem and carelessness, and eventually even contempt. Instead of enjoying an event or object for it's special qualities, we just start to accept it as if whre around forever and is not particularly special.

Autistic children provide an interesting case study on how the human mind works in relationship to routine, in it's most extreme case. The personality of the autistic child hightens that child's demand for routine, it makes routine an essential part of our lives. All people, not just autistic people demand such routine, although most are able to overcome and adopt to change. Change usually does not come by choice, as breaking routine tends to force an individual to search deeper and find how to exist in the new environment. That is not easy, and requires a lot of work on the part of the individual. Routine provides a way almost for us to exist without having to exert much beyond a machine-like attitude.

Routine may be desirable for the individual, but it seems to have such evil qualities. How come? Routine turns human action into process, an almost machine like type of actions. You get up every morning at 6 AM to milk 'the' goats*, eat breakfast, take a shower, then hop in your truck at 7 AM to go to work. A machine probably could do that job, only better and with greater reliablity and pleasure. Humans would much prefer to differ their days and their forms of action, yet such difference is nearly impossible to do in a world so centered around the clock and 'rational' insitutions.

Another problem with routine is it exasperates the law of deminishing returns. A constant contact with an object, makes you feel as though it's always been there, and always will be there. You become contemptful, and the object simply becomes little more then a machine to process things. There is a big difference between wanting a pickup truck and actually owning one. That truck when you first get it will be increadibly more valuable, then years down the road when you have been driving it forever. Moreover, when you buy a second truck or a replacement, it will not have the value the first truck had, when you first got your hands on it.

Case Studies in Routine

To consider what routine can do and it's destructive power over humankind, let's consider some interesting case studies.

Cars and Automobile Accidents

While many new drivers have accidents from inexperience, people also have accidents after driving for a long period of time. People after a while become dangerously familiar with the capabilities of their car, and start pushing it to the limits. They drive while using their hands-free cellphone, or by keeping only one hand on the side of the steering wheel. They listen to music, and change the radio station in traffic. They drive too fast on icy snowy roads. Certianly all experienced drivers do those things, but sometimes they can have bad results. We must remember we are driving at a high speed, and that driving is a privledge that can be revoked by the state for gross abuses, such as DWI or excessive speed.

Farms and Livestock Abuse

The family farm in the modern sense is a rather idealistic insitution. It's about a fundamental level of control overself and nature, but we also realize that the routine makes it boring and takes away from the charm of it all. Science and rountine may make it more efficent, but it also begs for abuse, such as failing to feed animals in time or not providing proper shelter. When your so close to the situation, it somehow becomes less important to you.

Working with Fire

Fire all too often gets out of hand, starting destructive household or forest fires. People start to love their candles too much, and fall asleep with them on. Fire has become routine, and the danger somehow subsides. People burning brush or trash outside forget to keep an eye on it, and we have forest fires. If you do something all the time, it becomes as if there is nothing to worry about, even with a force as destructive as fire.

Material Things

Not only do we live in a world of cheap things, we start to make those things so much part of our life, that we forget it's value until it's broken, playing rough and dangerously with items that might have been ecologically precious to make. But once it's in a our hands, we somehow forget, and play with it as there is nothing special about it—it's just routine.

Conclusions

This essay should have made you think a bit about routine, and how it effects your life in many ways. My examples where not all inclusive, and this essay only starts to get to the root of the problem. Escaping routine is difficult, as routine is often the most productive way to get things done, but we must also be careful with things we harnass and use everyday. Maybe the best solution is to try to think back to yesterday, when things were new and special, and do your best to figure out how to make today's routine world more special.

* Note how routine has turned the goats into nothing more then machines. We describe them as 'the' instead of 'my' or 'our' goats, simply because the human bond to this particular form of livestock has been broken.