The Meaning of Monotony

This is another typical vegetarian Monday for me. I've been doing this routine for many years. Routines give life a certain propulsive power. I've discussed about this in a previous blog article. Today I'm going to talk about another aspect of routine life--that it is monotonous and unmemorable.

The way our memory works is that it remembers novelties. We are hardwired that way. We remember things and events that stand out from the rest. If your everyday life involves you pursuing the same routines everyday, you'll find the familiar experience of time passing very fast. No, time always plods on at the same pace. Just that when there are no significant events to remember, all we see is an expanse of blandness. We mark time by events. If you punctuate your life with many small memorable events throughout the day, you'll find that your day can become very long.

You typical day in the office feels short, because all you remember is you going and leaving the office. But if you had spent the day attending a conference overseas where you got to sit through many talks and meet many new people throughout the world, you'll find that the day felt pretty full. A three-day conference certainly feels longer than 3 routine days in the office. The difference in our perception of time is just the novelty of our experience.

The key is novelty. The mind is programmed for it. The mind also gets familiar with things very fast. If you attend conferences every week, you'll will find it difficult to tell one from another. Time would fly again. Your year will pass in a blur of conferences.

Every letter that I type here has a timestamp--it occurred at a specific moment in in my lifetime. My blog has become the best chronicler of my mental life. Some article are more memorable than others. But again, because I've written so many of them, I can only remember the significant ones. The important thing though is to write and not to dwell on them like static monuments.

As long as you are acting positively in the world, you are leading a meaningful life--even if your life seems like a monotonous one. The pistons in an engine only move up and down but it propels the vehicle forward. As long as we act and live every moment of our lives with intent and purpose, we are living life to the fullest. The young mother who feels tied down with the endless chore of changing diapers and feeding her baby everyday is soon amazed to find how fast her child grows. In the 'blink of an eye', he is a young boy, and then a rebellious teenager and finally fully grown man, ready to start his own family.

The monotony of every life, if pursued with purpose, always bear results. Nothing is duller than watching a tree grow but grow it does and soon it will reward you with a bounty of fruits. It is the monotonous rhythm of the beat that binds a musical piece together. Without its regularity, everything falls apart. So do not lament the humdrum existence of your everyday life: listen to the rhythm of its monotony and how it alone binds everything into a meaningful whole.