If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound to blend unmemorably into the next — and disappear. That’s why it’s important to change routines regularly, and take vacations to exotic locales, and have as many new experiences as possible that can serve to anchor our memories. Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perception of our lives.
That’s Jonathan Foer in Moonwalking with Einstein. As someone who deeply trusts routine, I admit to using it. It’s not routine I love actually, but what it begets. Routine gives way to novelty. To variation. Without homogeneity, there would be no variation. It is the mechanics of sameness in some areas of our life that allows us wild diversity in others.
Foer goes on to say, “Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it.” Without the foundation of monotony, we would not have the confidence to diverge.
