Routine or Rut? YOU Make the Call

Routine:  Ordinary, with nothing to distinguish it from all others; a set of normal procedures, often followed mechanically.

Rut: A dull routine.

I often ponder the tension between a good, very nice, healthy routine and plowing mindlessly along, blindly repeating an action over and over with no perspective on the action outside of some internal mechanism locked onto auto-pilot.  I have a tendency to both behaviors.  I will say that as I've gotten older and older and soberer and soberer that the whole rut thing is not as compelling as it used to be.

I will also say that I sort of "get" it.  My wife grew up in a tiny farming town where everyone had been there forever and they all knew each other very well.  My initial reaction when I hear of this kind of existence is to break out in a cold sweat.  However, I've heard her talk about the comfort that comes from the familiarity.  It almost sounds like being married - mostly good, sometimes not so good, secure in the knowledge that whatever is going on right now is all part of the ebb and flow of the relationship.  I know that my bestest, oldest friends get on my nerves from time to time.  I also know that it don't mean shit in the big scheme, that we'll grow close, drift off, come back together.  We have a history, man.

That being said I tend toward chaos.  I don't like to repeat things.  I have almost never gone back and revisited someplace I've traveled to, even if it's someplace I really like.  I get there, I'm frustrated and frantic because I don't know where I am or where I'm going or how things work and then I explore and get a handle on things and then I get bored and want to repeat the whole thing somewhere else.  And then there's this - I have a series of things that I repeat very consistently, deviating rarely: exercise, eating habits, meeting attendance.  So what am I?  A slave to routine or a discombobulated chaos seeker?

I like to think I've gotten to the place where I can see the beauty in both things.  If I went to a different meeting every day I'd never experience the frustration of hearing some irritating blowhard drone on and on about nothing anyone cares about but then I'd never get to develop strong friendships, either.  Such a conundrum, such a war of competing drives.

I have a friend who visits his in-laws on the same day every week.  Every week.  Now, he likes his in-laws and recognizes that these gatherings are very important to his spouse but still. . . .  I'd be inclined to say: "Uh, not this week, dear."  I think my wife would look at me and say: "Uh, maybe he doesn't want to do this and I'll go by myself every other week."  We do have this somewhat detached relationship vis-a-vis our respective families - her family is nuts so I don't have to spend any time with them (they don't like me anyway) and my family is nuts so she doesn't have to spend any time with them.  I've been to 46 of the 48 continental US states - just not the one where she was born - and she travels all the time - just not back to The Old City where my family is domiciled.  So I see the bias in my worldview.

Every week, though?