Every time I’m on break, I have to deal with the unsettling dynamic of moving from a structured, fairly routine life to a much more amorphous existence. It’s vertebrate to invertebrate: un-vertebration.

So, this is me right now:

When I’m busy, I long for free time, to escape from the shackles of schedule. And a day off is wonderful. But when summer hits and I have whole weeks of freedom, it isn’t actually that great. I think work and rest compliment each other, and we get out of sorts when we only have one and not the other.

I’ve been thinking: It’s kind of existentially straining to not have any routines. There’s comfort and strength to be found in repetition. Think of the fundamental rhythms that under-gird our lives: day and night, the three meals, the holidays, the weeks, months and years. People associate jazz with spontaneity and improvisation, but really that improvisation takes place within a highly structured skeleton of tempo, key, form, and style.

I would argue that likewise humans in general work best when we have a foundational skeleton of routine and tradition to “improvise” on top of. There’s only so much choice we can handle psychologically; if we have too many decisions to make, we get overwhelmed and have trouble making any of them. And socially too, some things need to be set, if only for coordination. We drive on the right side of the road. Why? Because we all have to drive on the same side! So it’s too simplistic to say that the more freedom a person has, the better, and that anything that reduces the amount of choice in a person’s life is to be labeled as constraining (and thus to be fought). That being ‘tied down’ means unhappiness. I’d say it’s just as likely that not having a place to tie down would lead to unhappiness.

I think having structure can actually be enabling at the same time that it’s constraining. Routine in one area can allow for greater freedom in another; being able to take some things for granted allows one to focus more on other things.

Anyways, I’m rambling, but the point of all this is that now that I’ve had a lot of my structure stripped away, I’ve been trying to build anew. I don’t want to just do random things all day. I feel more fulfilled when my days have form. But I’m used to having other people (ie. teachers) providing a lot of that form. And I’m used to resisting that form, in a passive-aggressive sort of way, because of its external nature. But I think creating structure is usually a communal thing, and the expectations of others can in fact be a resource. It’s weird (and also more difficult) when I have to do it all myself. It takes discipline to say: ok, I’m going to practice Spanish an hour a day. I’m not naturally a super-organized person. But like I’ve been saying, having those kind of routines is good for well-being and growth. Having a routine of practicing Spanish is the best way to learn it.

Of course, in a couple weeks when I go to New Jersey, this same uprooting will happen over again. But there, I’ll be entering a new communal routine rather than just trying to create my own here at home.

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