I had sweet and sour pork on white rice for the 5th work day in a row today. When I like and get used to eating something for lunch, I keep eating it. I am feeling a bit queasy about my meal though - I get these ideas in my head about what's good and partake in it and then forget to actually ask myself whether I truly want it or not.
I suppose it is a mental laziness thing - some habits are.
Some basic habits are important - like tying my shoelaces in the morning. I don't really think about it, I just do it.
Some more sophisticated habits are comfortable - like sitting down on my sofa, pulling up a cushion, and flicking through the TV. I don't really think about it, I just do it.
Some habits are very basic, but unexplainable (to me): Biting my nails. Slouching as I walk in an effort to appear headstrong. Drinking Coke all the time. Flushing the toilet before ending my pee - that's so no one hears the end of my pee. And then flushing again. Trying to get the orange juice uncapped, poured and returned to the fridge before the fridge door swings back shut - without touching the fridge door again. Robbing banks (just seeing if you're paying attention - I don't rob banks).
Dr. Tory Hoff, my history of psychology professor at U of T - at the time on loan from the University of Saskatoon, wearing cowboy boots, a big buckle and who introduced me to Julian Jaynes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (referenced somewhere in an earlier post to this blog) - taught me that the word habit is etymologically derived from Monks' habits - something one wears all the time. We wear habits, we are draped in them - they are, to all outward appearances, of us.
Habits - by my estimation - are easily related to compulsions. Compulsions are repetitive behavours driven by an impulse (if behaviourists will allow me that behaviours can also be internal thoughts) - a dark, forbidden impulse. I'm not saying all habits are driving by dark impulses, but rather that compulsions are habits driven by dark impulses. Yeah. And I mean sad, mad, bad, and glad (if that's not allowed in context) when I mean dark - the emotions 'on the other side of the curtain' beyond conscious ownership. I'm not mad. I'm NOT mad. I'M NOT MAD!!!
Compulsions are a clever and bolstered and sturdy way to deny ownership of the emotions on the other side of the curtain. I read about an architectural draftsman in the 60's who refused a simple company directive to draw extensions to boundary lines on blueprints - to give them a jazzed up, funky look. He just couldn't do it. It was a very visible refusal that fit with his own private refusals to go beyond boundaries in his life. Analysis revealed the hurt and pain he'd experienced in Dachau, and his visceral fear of breaking any rules or going beyond boundaries, on fear of immediate execution. Once he connected the dots, he was able to draw the squigglies. Actually, he left soon after, I suppose he no longer needed to control his mental world with blueprints and drawings.
No more squigglies.
I am not going to have sweet & sour pork on white rice for lunch any more.