Welcome to Insight Axis, where I make connections between practical philosophy, technology, books, science, and more.
This week we will explore why rituals are more powerful than habits.
This essay will cover:
My inspiration for rituals
Why rituals are more powerful than habits
The power of ritualising technical work
Debunking the idea that being intentional is effortful
My inspiration for rituals
I recently read
’s essay titled "Creating daily rituals to fill your cup", where she wrote about the joy of building beautiful rituals out of daily activities, and adding more "niceness" to life.Her approach is different from the mainstream strategy of leaning into habitual behaviour, which has been popularised by several books (see Atomic Habits by James Clear and The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg). James Clear refers to a study claiming that 40 percent of our behaviours are habitual. When I read this statistic I thought "wow, I didn’t realise I live 40% of my life without being fully conscious".
For a long time, I focused on trying to build good habits and eliminating bad ones. That was until I read Charlene's piece, and I realised that she was right. I felt compelled to refine my own thoughts on the idea, and share them with my (I assume!) more tech-oriented audience.
Why rituals are more powerful than habits
Habits are small actions that are performed so often, that you can essentially initiate them on autopilot. Rituals are actions that you perform in service of something greater than just the direct result of the action. Rituals are also actions that you perform for their own sake.
Based on these definitions, a ritual is far more powerful than a habit because it's driven by conscious intention and awareness. In her essay, Storey describes how she ritualises simple actions:
"For me, it's about slowing yourself and the process all the way down... taking the time over something you enjoy but could easily rush through..."
What is it about slowing something down that helps you ritualise it? By taking your time, you become more mindful of the action itself, rather than just rushing to the end result. This awareness creates space for you to appreciate the beauty of the activity, and transforms it into a meaningful ritual. It involves a reclamation of aliveness and intention in action. It bypasses the discourse around "good" and "bad" habits to give you something even more potent: conscious choice.
The power of ritualising technical work
It's easy to think that rituals only apply spiritual or religious activities. What's great about Storey's essay is that she extends the idea to ritualising simpler, day-to-day activities. But I want to take things a step further. I want to invite you to think about the power of ritualising hard things, like technical work:
Coding: there is something to be said about programming slowly, intentionally, properly, and once. Often, programmers get sucked into writing complex solutions, without accompanying explanatory comments. Or, they get tunnel vision writing a section of code without "zooming out" to consider the overall architecture of their solution. When they come back to review things weeks later, the code might make no sense. By slowing down and ritualising the act of coding and commenting as you write, you give yourself the space to think about the overall aim of the program, and embrace the process of writing explainable comments as a way to help refine your thinking.
Mathematics: in complex, multi-step problems, it's not uncommon to try and "skip a line", or perform some of the work in your head. But building the ritual of intentionally writing out each line serves multiple purposes. Similar to coding, it helps others follow your solution. Second, it helps to prevent errors which can easily creep in when trying to solve half the problem in your head, and the other half on paper.
Technical writing: several of my readers are also writers, so I think ritualising the act of writing might be the most powerful example to consider. Therefore, instead trying to explain it, I invite the reader to try an exercise to experience it for themselves: type slower than your top speed. Much slower. Feel the keys under your fingers. Bring your awareness and full intention to each word you write. And notice. Notice how your writing flows better, and the structure of your technical argument shines through with less effort.
All these examples apply Storey's method of slowing right down.
also touched on this principle in his fantastic essay titled "Slow is Smooth and Smooth is Fast". Whilst he didn't explicitly frame the concept of slowing down as ritualisation, I think there is a link to be made here. Perhaps ritualisation is the kindling that ignites a "slow is smooth and smooth is fast" approach.Debunking the idea that being intentional is effortful
“Why should I expend effort doing mundane things like brushing my teeth or tying my shoelaces?" These comments make the assumption that being conscious is effortful. But take a moment and ask yourself. Why should bringing a sense of "aliveness" to anything be effortful?
I don't think it should be. I think that when your consciousness, intentions and actions are aligned, there is no effort at all. This is difficult to explain in words, so I end this essay with the following invitation to my readers. Try ritualisation for yourself, and bring your full aliveness to everything you do - from the mundane, all the way to the hard technical stuff. To put it more bluntly, fuck around and find out.
Ritualise the process over the end-goal, and see what happens.
Recommended reading from Substack and beyond:
Substack:
👨💻
explains the pitfalls of building software with LLMS.🦉
tells us how to enjoy things and (and gives his pseudonym a fresh plumage).💪
uncovers the power of analogy.🤤
riffs on ’ ideas on mimesis and desire.⛵️
on why agility without discipline is just chaos (and who knew sailing boats could move faster than the wind that powers them!)
Beyond:
Malcolm Harris writes a top piece on how the dot-com crash created Palo Alto’s clueless investor class.
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by
, illustrated by .
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I love learning more from my readers, so leave a comment with your thoughts
Thank you for your piece.
I found that rushing was robing me form the effectiveness and the joy of things. Particularly, writing sometimes felt like a race thinking about the finish line.
Also drinking coffee. I do it slow and get more joy from it.
Taking time is important with ideas too. For them to make a groove in us requires several passes and the adequate slow pace for the "ink to dry" in the mind.
Just things to think about.
I like this idea of ritualization, especially how you apply it to different situations!