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A Piece Of My Mind -- Routines And Ruts

KLCC

This is "A Piece of My Mind."  I'm Claude Offenbacher.     

Much of what we consider to be daily pleasures may be merely routines and not, in fact,  pleasurable at all.     

This notion hit me one morning while completing a dozen crossword puzzles.  I'd clipped them from newspapers delivered after I came home from California.

Was this word-solving orgy a boon to my life,  I wondered, or simply a conditioned compulsion to leave no puzzle undone?  And how much of the rest of my day would be filled with rituals more habitual than necessary, or even satisfying?

The words"routine" and "rut" are closely related in derivation.  What other activities do I pursue each day not because they're good for me or even enjoyable, but out of some mindless impulse?

I've already lived most of my life.  In the years left to me,  I'll try to consider, before engaging in any habitual practice, whether I'm in a groove...or merely in a rut.

And that's "A Piece of My Mind."