The disappearance of rituals
The difficult task of finding one's place when everything changes
🏷️ Categories: Personal stories, Habits
I don't remember at what point we stopped doing these things, but it happened.
When I was a kid, Saturdays were special days. My parents and I would take the car and run away to the country.
It was a ritual.
It would start early, crossing green landscapes, breathing in the fresh air swirling through the open window. We would always go to the same restaurant, the food was excellent and the natural surroundings were a luxury. After lunch, we would spend the afternoon walking the surrounding countryside and chatting.
Saturdays had a clear script, and that habit filled me with satisfaction.
In this sense, rituals are a custom that is shared with the community and without speaking everyone knows what to do to be part of the moment. Saturday was predictable, I knew what would happen and that made me happy before even living it.
Do you think predictable things are just as enjoyable now?
You go out to eat, you have a good time, the food is excellent, the place is beautiful and the price is right. All ideal. Some time later someone in your group asks where to go this time to eat, if you say the same place as a few weeks ago, the answer of most of them will be: “No, we have already been there, let's go to a new place”.
The desire for novelty takes precedence over the pleasure already known.
It is neophilia, the love for the new just because it is new.
The philosopher Byung-Chul Han talked about this disappearance of rituals and their role in creating personal identity. Rituals are predictable, you get used to wanting something that you know is rewarding and your whole group does it with you, it defines your identity; “we like this”, “on Saturdays we go to this restaurant”.
Those rituals are dissolving and the identity is fragmenting.
Instead of wanting something that you already know you like and defines you, you want to discover something that you may or may not like. The problem is that what is new ceases to be new once you experience it and you have to look for something new to fill that desire for novelty. An endless search to find gratification in an ephemeral quality. The new.
There is no identity in the person; all his preferences and habits are unstable.
Ritual is the antithesis, it is knowing how to choose and repeat what you consider valuable with your group.
Technology plays an interesting role in this uprooting of customs.
We live permanently connected, but, paradoxically, we rarely create bonds as close as those that rituals created with our close group.
We used to know our neighbors and share more or less homogeneous values with the community and the family. Now, references are often miles away, through social networks or the media. We are more likely to empathize and know more about the life of an influencer than that of the neighbor next door.
Before, these references were tangible and close to our context.
Now we build our identity from the screen to the global world.
I see it in people my age and younger. When it comes to forming identity, building preferences and values, distant people we see through a screen are very influential, and people close to us, such as relatives, neighbors, teachers, etc., have lost weight.
Close references have been devalued in favor of global references.
Liquid modernidity
The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman speaks of the concept of “liquid modernity”.
This concept resonates with what I see and have been explaining. Bauman argues that we live in an era in which identity and social relations, once solid and stable, have become fluid and ambiguous.
Our way of being is fluctuating and there is no need to be defined or committed.
A modern life is marked by changes, sometimes very rapid. In the flow through life, a person can change residences, jobs, preferences, values and even spouses and friendships without any commitment or friction.
Flexibility is becoming a more important quality than stability.
The consequence is obvious: it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain habits and establish a way of life that feels good. There are so many options and novelties that it is difficult for a person to remain calm in what they have and how they live. It is very seductive to flow without commitment or responsibility going from flower to flower like bees.
On an individual level you never quite find your place.
On a social level you never create a close and satisfying bond with anything.
I will review my balance between the freedom to change and the need to settle.
✍️ Your turn: What special moments do you repeat over and over again with your group?
💭 Quote of the day: “It was her rituals, the routines that made her feel alive and connected. Without them, where would she be? Lost.” The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud, Ben Sherwood.
Have you created a ritual around my cards? I do when I read your comments.
References 📚
Han, Byung-Chul. (2020). The Disappearance of Rituals.
Bauman, Zygmunt (2000). Liquid Modernity.
While there are lots of opportunities for neophillia in my area, we do live in a small town where favorite restaurants become places to family celebrations and familiar faces among the staff of that place. Americans are notorious nomads throughout our lives. I've lost count of the places I've lived and the times I've started over settling into a new neighborhood. It was interesting, though, to here a lady in my knitting group (every Thursday afternoon ritual BTW) say that she is exhausted from the years of entertaining neighbors every Friday night in her old town and is relieved to live in a neighborhood where everybody's content to harbor in their homes and only wave in passing. This may be a typical life passage for of thing. We change our rituals as we age and attain new energy levels.