While preparing for my outdoor, wood-fired tub the other evening, I found myself once again immersed in a preparatory routine that I've followed for well over a couple of decades now. I have enjoyed something on the order of 2,000 hot tubs—each one involves cleaning and filling the tub, splitting the wood, carefully monitoring the water temperature as I add wood to the stove, as well as carrying out several other steps in the process. It’s a lengthy and rather complicated process.
As I was into the regimen, I thought about all the many routines we humans follow every day, from first coming awake and crawling out of bed, until we once again retire later that night. Yet even throughout the night we still follow routines, as some of us engage in a repetitive dream, or arise in the wee hours to pee.
Why do we devise and follow routines? Turning to the dictionary definition of routine, I find: “a sequence of actions regularly followed; a fixed program.” The root of routine is the French word rute, for route or road. If it's a “sequence of actions regularly followed,” it occurs to me that a routine must have proved successful over time—otherwise, we'd be pretty foolish to follow it regularly.
So a routine implies some procedure that we've fine-tuned over time—a procedure that works for us. The routine I follow these days in setting up the tub bath is not the one I used 10 years ago. I have modified it over time, and gradually improved it. My current routine leads to an outcome that is both predictable and mostly successful. Having been a scientist in my former life, I realize that establishing a routine that works is similar to the scientific process: you start with a theory (“This is how I think I'll prepare my tub.”), and then test it out and improve it over many trials. In time, the procedure mostly brings about fulfillment of the objective you're working toward.
So how does a routine compare to a ritual? They differ, I think, in that I develop and perfect my own routine—it's a procedure that I've built over time, often by trial and error. In contrast, a ritual is a ceremony created by someone else. My dictionary defines ritual as “a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.” In fact, the root of the word ritual is the Latin word ritus, meaning “religious usage.”
Many rituals are age-old customs laid down long ago and steadfastly followed ever since. Religious rituals are a good example. A time-tested ritual is also not something to modify but to adhere to, often in order to bring together a group of believers; to create a community of practitioners. So that's a key difference between routine and ritual: we hone our personal routines, while we tend to “religiously” follow rituals laid down by others.
So how about ruts? Can following either a routine or a ritual lead to one becoming stuck in a rut? The dictionary defines rut as “a habit or pattern of behavior that has become dull and unproductive, but is hard to change.” We fall into a rut when a routine or a ritual is repeated mindlessly. I have watched people in church perform a ritual that has lost its meaning—as parishioners rush through a prayer almost out of boredom. Similarly, a self-created routine can degrade into an unpleasant chore, if I'm doing it just to get through it, or I daydream about the myriad other things I'd rather be engaged in.
If we can let go the desire to be someplace else and engage fully and mindfully in the routine or ritual that we're currently performing, it can take us to a very different mental place. As our body is involved in the work, our mind can roam freely through the universe, playing with various ideas. We go into a sort of automatic mode, wherein our subconscious mind tends to the task at hand, while the conscious mind can be freed up to brainstorm. In this way, even a rut can be transformed into a fertile and inventive activity.
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