Do you ever feel trapped? Do your days pass by like an unmemorable blur? Do you regret using the same toilet day after day? Then you, my dear peer, should change your routines and perhaps forget your commitment to habit altogether.
Some thrive on routines. I see the same gang of students at the same times in the Plan II office, week after week. They’re doing course work, socializing pleasantly and providing faces with which to say ‘Hey’ and ‘See ya later’ as I arrive to print and then sprint to class.Yet, I do not envy the human fixtures in the office or ‘regulars’ anywhere (except maybe bars). No, I prefer to see something new everyday and agree with the late essayist Christopher Hitchens’ mother who told her son, “the only unforgivable sin is to be boring.”
So as to stave off that sin, I sit in a different seat every time my classes meet, I rarely study in the same place twice, and I seek uncharted bathroom stalls when nature calls. This habitual avoidance of habit has immeasurably enriched my liberal arts education. I now know the spectrum of annoyance that displacing my classmates can provoke. I now know where to find the prettiest women to look up from my Locke or Descartes at. I now know where I may, in solitude, looking out on a scenic view, and sitting on a clean toilet, move my bowels on campus. Indeed, after three years of rigorous study, I am well qualified to teach a junior seminar to be titled “The Aesthetics and Contemplative Significance of Men’s Rooms at Public Universities in the Early 21st Century.”
Therefore, I beg you, kind colleagues, to follow in my inconsistent footsteps. Walk without rhythm and flush your ennui down new drains.
Sincerely,
Sam Liebl
