My Morning Ritual

A daily ritual is a way of saying I'm taking care of myself.

— Mariel Hemingway

Like hundreds of millions of people around the globe, I wake up every morning and perform precisely the same task.

I brew coffee.

For me, it's more a ritual than a routine.

A routine, psychologists say, is a more or less meaningless activity, while a ritual is purpose-filled.

Brewing coffee certainly is purpose-filled for me. 

I'd describe its purpose as "to start the day with elation."

Some days, I know, will deliver several moments of elation.

But some days will not.

My morning ritual compensates for that.

It's like an insurance policy that protects me from a ho-hum day.

"It is unrealistic to want to be happy all the time," says alternative medicine advocate Andrew Weil.

He's right, of course.

But doesn't everyone deserve at least one dose of happiness a day, even if it's caffeine-induced?

The morning ritual is a catalyzer of happiness.

It is a homecoming, a refuge, or, in the words of the German philosopher Byung Chul Han, a "technology for housing oneself."

Life coaches and self-help gurus point to the morning ritual as the prime example of "self-care."

It gives you the feeling that you're in control, even if that's for only a few minutes of the day.

Were I more original, I'd invent my own morning ritual, as did many famous people in the past:

• Ben Franklin sat and wrote naked every morning for an hour after rising.
  
  
• John Quincy Adams (also naked) took a dip in the Charles River.
  
  
• Jane Austen woke up every morning and played the piano for an hour.
  
  
• Alexander Dumas began his mornings with a stroll beneath the Arc de Triomphe, where he would stop to eat an apple.

• Marcel Proust woke every day to smoke a bowl of opium and eat a croissant.

• Winston Churchill drank a whiskey and smoked a cigar first thing every morning.
  
  
• Marilyn Monroe drank raw egg yolks in warm milk.
  
  
• Elizabeth Taylor arose to eat bacon and eggs with a mimosa.

Many contemporary celebrities have more imaginative morning routines than mine, as well. 

TV producer Simon Cowell, for example, wakes up every morning and watches Hanna-Barbera cartoons. 

Warren Buffet drinks a can of Coke and reads The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, like clockwork. 

Michelle Obama wakes up at 4:30 and works out in the gym. 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wakes up and drinks water and lemon. "I try to drink it slowly and mindfully,” she told Balance the Grind.

Victoria Beckham wakes up and drinks two tablespoons of vinegar.

Morning rituals are really all about doing one thing that's important to you, no matter what the day may bring.

The hell with the rest of the world, the morning ritual pronounces: this is mine.

As journalist Jess McHugh wrote in The Washington Post in January, morning rituals "provide a feeling of freedom and a rare moment for self-determination."

What's your morning ritual?

Above: The Morning Coffee by Charles Hawthorne. Oil on canvas. 30 x 30 inches.

Let Go

Let go that which burdens you. Let go any acts of unkindness or brutality from or against you. Let go one breath into another.

— Joy Harjo

Known locally as "Massholes," they drive mostly black SUVs and oversize pickup trucks.

While driving in Massachusetts, I must remember Joy Harjo's poem. 

Against the Grain

He who goes about to reform the world must begin with himself.

― Ignatius of Loyola

I often hear people say they're proud troublemakers, eager to go "against the grain."

In our narcissistic age, we've gotten that Elizabethan idiom backwards.

In Shakespeare's day, to go "against the grain" meant to resist not the herd's instinct, but your own; to act in ways contrary to your own desires; to be a spartan, not a contrarian.  

If you've ever used a plane, you know that to go "against the grain" isn't just hard: it's impossible.

But try we must. 

The Catholic priest Ignatius of Loyola, who died only eight years before Shakespeare was born, urged his followers to try through the injunction agere contra, Latin for "act against."

Whatever it is you intend to do, Ignatius preached, resist your first instinct. 

Go against the grain.

We're advised today to "go with our gut," but in Ignatius' time that idea was thought dangerous. 

Your gut is too selfish. It leads you away from just acts. It leads you away, people thought, because human nature has been robbed of justice, thanks to Original Sin.

The source of this notion was the "universal teacher" and church doctor Thomas Aquinas. 

Aquinas taught that our "fallen nature" is in every regard still uncorrupted except in the area of justice. 

Left to our own devices—our gut instincts—we're always going to act unjustly, thanks to Adam and Eve. Because they defied God, the instinct for injustice is baked into human nature. It manifests in our worst habits and most insidious impulses.

Given our narcissistic bent, we could all use a little of Ignatius' advice to agere contra. 

Imagine how much better off we'd be if, rather than performing a "gut check," we checked our gut.

Addicts would get sober. 

Fat people would lose weight. 

Lazy people would contribute. 

Killers would lay down their handguns. 

The wealthy would pay taxes. 

Politicians would speak truths. 

Cynics would take heart. 

Mean people wouldn't suck.

I hope to go against the grain and put a little agere contra into daily practice myself.

You with me?

Bad Breaks

Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on
in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace,
like a clock during a thunderstorm.

— Robert Louis Stevenson

While 2020 brought misfortune to so many, it was kind to me—so much so, I often felt spooked. 

The things that went well for me all went exceedingly well, while the things that went wrong were without consequence.

I often felt like Jean-Paul Sartre's fearless skier, who enjoys such complete dominion over the slopes that he glides down them weightlessly, not even leaving tracks in the snow. (He is Sartre's metaphor for the unbounded ego.)

I felt like that skier, anyway, until last Sunday, when a fall on the ice in my driveway left me with five breaks in the bones that form my left ankle.

Now I'm an invalid; in pain and facing surgery; and will be laid up in a cast for over three months.

The caregivers in the ER were all quick to point out, "Just be happy you didn't conk your head on the pavement."

They were absolutely right, of course.

I'm happy I didn't hit my head. I'm also happy for the good neighbors who rushed to my rescue; for the ambulance drivers who arrived in 10 minutes and wheeled me out of the house and into the hospital; for the doctors and nurses on duty in the ER last Sunday, and for the surgeon who's going to install plates and screws in my leg next week; for sympathetic friends and relatives; for my oldest son, who played sitter while my wife finished her last week on the job (she's retiring); and for my wife, who's playing sitter now—and will for another 12 weeks, provided I behave.

As she pointed out, given the lockdown, I picked an excellent time to break five bones. Or the excellent time picked me.

She's sleeping right now and I'm perched on the sofa with my splinted leg up on a hassock. The only sounds are those of the windchimes outdoors, an occasional car on the road, and the tick-tock of the kitchen clock.

I pray for a quiet mind in 2021. "Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace," Stevenson said.

Even a fortunate son is liable to bad breaks.

How about you?  

Above: "Clock" by John Murray.