This content argues that rituals, rather than New Year's resolutions, are essential for creating a meaningful and habitable experience of time by fostering presence, memory, and self-transcendence, moving away from the exhausting pursuit of constant self-optimization.
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The question isn't what ritual will make
you a better person. The question
[music] more so becomes what do you want
to remember? What do you want to
remember about yourself? What [music] do
Hello and [music] welcome to another
video. I'm going to try and keep this
intro short and sweet. Yes, I am nestled
between two white beds. This is the only
source of natural light that I have. And
a lot of the places that we've been
staying at, they kind of really [music]
try and bump up the bed to room ratio.
And sometimes there's two to three beds
per room and only two of us. Anyway, so
I'm here in between two beds and I want
to talk about rituals [music]
and New Year's resolutions. And when I
started writing this, I really thought
that I was going to talk more about
[music] New Year's resolutions. I
haven't engaged with them in a long
time. I realized that what I decided at
the beginning of the year that I wanted
to do by month three kind of felt
lackluster by month six sometimes felt
completely irrelevant but because I had
written them down I felt that need to
accomplish them but I wouldn't and then
the guilt and the shame and I know a
[music] lot of us relate to that and so
I thought that what I was going to offer
was that we could do things a little bit
differently and maybe include more
rituals in our life which I think
ultimately is what I'm trying to do with
this video. Uh but I think it became
more about how we experience time and
how resolution thinking can make our
experience of time and our experience of
life so vastly different. This of course
is mostly inspired by the fact that I've
been reading a lot of Bangchan and I
read the disappearance of rituals. So
I'll be quoting him a lot. I've also
been living in Japan where a lot of
people engage in a lot of rituals quite
often and it's just been very wonderful
to see and to reflect on how devoid my
life has been of ritual. So, let's get
into it. I know you know this feeling is
the feeling when you pick up your phone,
you probably want to check a message or
something and then you start scrolling
and then you look up and a whole hour
has passed by, sometimes two. It's
especially potent this feeling when you
do this in the late afternoon and
suddenly you realize that the whole
house is dark because the sun has gone
down and you haven't turned on all the
lamps. I hate that [laughter] feeling
and that is one very specific way of
experiencing time and a lot of us are
stuck here and it's what Biancan calls
serial perception. So serial perception
is extensive. It is one thing after the
other moving through an endless feed of
stimulation. And the thing about serial
perception is that it is incapable of
what Han calls lingering. The feeling of
actually being present with something
fully present and letting that kind of
sink in and settle in. Hideer also had a
word for this and he called it dwelling.
To dwell means to linger. To tarry, to
be somewhere, to really be there, not
just pass through. And I think that this
is the the way of experiencing time that
New Year's resolution kind of evokes,
which is one thing after the next, one
goal after the next. You're always
moving toward the next thing, towards
the next version of yourself without
ever lingering anywhere because there is
nowhere to linger because there is no
arriving anywhere. the sky is the limit [laughter]
[laughter]
and you're just in perpetual motion,
constant striving and endless becoming,
which sounds absolutely exhausting.
Symbolic perception is the opposite. It
is the ability of letting something mean
something over time to be able to come
back to this thing over and over again
and still find it resonant. And that's
what rituals do. They kind of pull you
out of serial time, out of that constant
like moving forward frantic way of
experiencing time and drop you into
symbolic time. Time that is not measured
by what you can accomplish or how
productive you can be or the things that
you will do that will benefit you in the
future. It is time that is measured by
what you attend to. And one thing that
Simone Vil, who I really love, um,
speaks about is sustained attention. And
she says that attention is the rarest
and purest form of generosity. To give
something your full attention, not
because it's useful and not because it's
productive, but simply because it's
there and because it matters. Rituals
are acts of attention. Full attention.
It kind of says like this thing is here
and that thing deserves my presence.
We're all kind of addicted to novelty.
We can see it in all the micro trends.
Uh you can see it in like the last, I
don't know, two decades of self-help
books. Like there's always one new
system, one new routine, one new way of
thinking that will finally unlock
everything for you and you'll finally
become your most authentic self. I think
it's become really helpful for me to
read different philosophers and it has
made me feel a lot more at peace. And
one thing that Kierard says is that only
the new of which one tires. One never
tires of the old. He says it's the new
that exhausts us. And that this
compulsion to constantly seeking
something new and something fresh that
gets us deeper into this empty routine.
And we think we're escaping routine by
constantly seeking out this new stimuli.
But that consumption then becomes the
routine. And rituals break this cycle,
this empty routine through repetition.
Because through repetition, you can
create intensity, deep intensity and
deep meaning. You can come back to the
same thing over and over and over again.
And that kind of accumulates over time.
It doesn't become less significant. It
becomes more significant. It it it
becomes more important in your life. One
small example that I can think of is
maybe having that first cup of tea or
that first cup of coffee on your own,
sitting down, maybe reading a book. I
don't tire of that. I don't tire of
waking up a little bit earlier than
everybody and pouring myself a cup of
tea and sitting down and reading for
like 20 or 30 minutes. That to me has
become such an important part of my day
and it's something that keeps on giving
and I think it gives more than what it
requires from me. Rituals can be a way
of creating duration in our life of
extending time and it can create pockets
of symbolic time in a world where like
very often it just really recognizes
serial time. When I was 19, I went all
the way to New Zealand to study marine
science at uni. And then my life totally
deviated from that and I ended up doing
nothing with marine science. And now I'm
32 and I'm doing a masters in
counseling. And they just couldn't be
more different from each other, which I
think it sums up a lot of people's
experience, but at least my own in which
I've just been [music] consistently
interested in so many different things.
And I can't necessarily go to university
for each interest and pursue it
academically, even though I would really
love to cuz I love learning. [music] And
I think that is one of the things that
I've always really appreciated about
Skillshare and I have found so immensely
valuable throughout the years. [music]
They are the sponsor of today's video.
They allow people to have multiple
interests and you can continue to feed
those curiosities without having to
invest a [music] whole lot of money or a
whole lot of time. Writing is one of the
things that I've been consistently
interested in throughout the years and
Skillshare has so many classes on
[music] creative writing. They also have
learning paths. So, they kind of create
a little curriculum for you, which I
find very useful. I like being told what
to do and then do it. And these classes
[music] are taught by other writers,
other very successful writers. One class
that I've enjoyed a lot that I've taken
multiple times is storytelling 101. I've
also really loved the Roxen Gay class,
[music] and they have also a very good
creative essay writing learning path.
So, if there's anything that you'd like
to learn, I would highly encourage you
to join Skillshare. The first 500 people
to click the link in the description box
below or to scan the QR code will get
one month free trial with Skillshare.
Plus, you can give Skillshare
memberships to friends and family. I
think it's the perfect [music] gift. So,
thank you so much to Skillshare for
sponsoring today's video. Making time
habitable. I think this is my favorite
concept around rituals, especially as a
very time anxious person. I wake up and
immediately I'm available. Notifications
rush through as soon as I put my phone
off, not disturb. And it feels really
like I've lost this feeling of being at
home in my own time. And Bianchol Han
writes, "Rituals are symbolic techniques
of making oneself at home in the world.
They render time habitable." Like time
is a place you're supposed to be able to
live in. Right now, it feels like we're
just moving through time and trying to
optimize our way through it, but we're
not actually inhabiting it. Rituals
create this time in which you don't have
to be performing and you don't have to
be producing anything. And I think
rituals have a very lovely way of of
fostering that feeling that you can just
you can just be. Another way rituals
make time habitable is by giving our
life a more predictable shape and pulse
like creating a container. They can
provide us with rhythmic markers and
offer both the comfort of rhythmic
regularity and the flexibility to adapt
to changing circumstances enabling us to
keep time and kind of stay in sync with
the pace of life. Because when time has
no internal structure, when there are no
transitions, no temporal landmarks, time
can become kind of overwhelming. It's
all available, but none of it feels like
it's really yours. Rituals can divide
time into meaningful units. It doesn't
give you more time necessarily, but it
makes time feel more livable.
Resolutions, however, are like you need
to become this new person. You need to
have this new body, and you need to
build this new habit and completely
overhaul your identity because because
who you are is not exactly enough. We
need to we need to level up. We need to
step it up. And there's always this gap
between where you are and who you are
and who you should be and where you
should be. And these resolutions are
meant to just bridge it. But rituals
instead, they they just they just kind
of remind you of the things that you
already know. We we really have lost
this capacity of remembering. And I
spoke about this in a previous video of
how we're losing our memory and how
journaling can really help with um
remembering the things that you already
know. But I think it has a lot to do
with how we experience time. And if
we're constantly experiencing time that
is extensive and is constantly moving us
forward, then it's really hard to
remember anything. So the world that we
live in right now is constantly making
you forget the things that you already
know. And Alan Deaton just puts it very
perfectly. He says, "Rituals make vivid
to us things we already know but are
likely to have forgotten." So rituals
don't teach you that you need to rest.
Like you know that you need you know
that you need to rest. They don't teach
you that like connection to uh community
is important. You already know that.
They just make things vivid again. They
make it real in your body, in your
day-to-day, in your actual lived
experience instead of just in your head
where it's like really easy to ignore.
Self-trcendence versus selfoptimization.
There's this cultural mandate that we're
currently living in which is the center
yourself. That's what we're told to do.
We need to find ourselves, express
ourselves, find our most authentic self.
And it's everywhere. It's in social
media. It's in therapy speak. It's part
of the whole self-help genre. And of
course, resolutions are the perfect
expression of this because they are
hyperindividualistic very often. Um, so
it's all about self-improvement and
self-disipline and becoming your best
self. And it's about monitoring your
progress and tracking your metrics. And
I spoke about this in a previous video
in which our kind of how we meet this
moment in which we are feeling a lack of
meaning in our life and are struggling
to find connections with ourselves and
the world around us is by finding
meaning through tracking our own
statistics. It's by tracking our steps
is by tracking like our weight, our
calories. Um, and you can see this a lot
through like New Year's resolutions tend
to be uh colored by like an obsession
with health um and an obsession with the
self and wanting to become the
healthiest version of yourself because
that's how you become, you know, morally
better than everybody else. And I think
there's a definite correlation between a
loss of meaning through how we consume
media and how we experience time and how
we become really obsessed with our
physical bodies and our physical health.
And this can be deeply isolating. Um, I
have found these goals that center
around myself usually to kind of detach
me from community, especially when I
have been really adamant about following
a specific kind of diet or adhering to a
specific kind of workout routine. It
kind of cuts me off from socializing and
it all just becomes this like private
project that only I can do. and if I
don't adhere to it, then I'm the person
to blame and it just like inevitably
fails. Rituals require something very
different. Han says that those who
devote themselves to rituals must ignore
themselves. Rituals produce a distance
from the self, a self-trcendence. When
you're in ritual, you don't have to be
constantly monitoring yourself or
analyzing yourself. You're just doing
the thing. You're just there and you're
not the center. The ritual is the
center. This creates what Han call calls
an embodied identity. Not an identity
that you construct through choices or
through personal brandings that you
curate and present, but more so it is an
identity that simply emerges from
repeated symbolic actions from what you
do over and over again and from the
patterns you enact in your body.
Resolutions try to construct identity
from the outside in, whereas rituals
construct them from the inside out. So
with resolutions, it's like if I do
these things, then I'll become this. But
with rituals, it's if I repeatedly do
this with presence, an identity will
emerge and it's an identity that I
didn't have to construct. It just is.
Self focus can make you miserable. And
it's not necessarily because you're
being selfish. I think there are many
times in which selfishness is required
to show yourself some respect, to
instill some healthy boundaries, to put
yourself first. Sometimes you do have to
put yourself first. Um, but I just think
that the self is such a small container
for a meaningful life. Um, so when
everything is about you and everything
is about your journey and your
accomplishments, you can just start to
collapse inward cuz it's not
sustainable. We we think that we need to
just like consistently work on ourselves
and that the problem is that we're not
doing enough work. The problem is that
there there's no limit to how much work
you can do on yourself. again part of
living in a neoliberal capitalistic
hellscape. But sometimes what we
actually need to do is kind of forget
ourselves and not in like a ego death
kind of way or like dissolve yourself
kind of way, but just enough to
participate in something that is a bit
larger than ourselves. And just like
enough to let the ritual hold you, to
let the ritual provide the space for you
to again, as we said, linger and dwell
and maybe just feel at ease. How we
experience time can shape what we
remember. And what we remember can shape
who we are. So serial time, that
extensive time, the scroll and forget,
the perpetually moving forward time,
that doesn't stick. It doesn't
accumulate. You can spend a whole life
just consuming and come out the other
side with really nothing much to hold on
to. Symbolic time is different. It
builds. It compounds. It makes the same
thing feel deeper and more significant
and more meaningful. It's maybe the same
walk you take every morning at the same
time. It's maybe the same cafe that you
go to when you sit down and you read
your book. You don't need elaborate
rituals. I mean, you can if you want.
You can do whatever you want. Uh, but it
can be as simple as, you know, having
the same group of friends over once a
month for a dinner that you host. Or it
can be, I don't know, baking a cake
every Sunday morning. It can be going to
the same park bench and sitting there
for an hour to read or just sitting
there in silence. Um, it's it's about
just creating that consistency and that
repetition. And it has nothing to do
with efficiency. It has nothing to do
with productivity. It has nothing to do
with what these things will bring for
you. It's just doing it because it
matters because it makes your body
remember. If you're baking something, it
makes your hands remember. The smell
fills the house and you remember that it
it feels like time becomes home again.
The question isn't what ritual will make
you a better person. The question more
so becomes, what do you want to
remember? What do you want to remember
about yourself? What do you want to
remember about your life? What do you
want time to feel like when you look
back? Because I think for a lot of us,
we feel like time is kind of slipping
from our fingers. It's evaporating and
we never have enough time. But rituals
make time solid again. They make time
habitable. And you can build a life that
you know doesn't just pass through you,
but that you're actually living, that
you actually remember, that your body
remembers, that you hold in your memory.
And I think I'll end this video just by
saying that you already know what
matters. You always have. You've always
known. We just need to stop pretending
that we don't know. Okay. Thank you so
much for watching. I hope you have a
lovely rest of the year. I hope you take
it easy on yourself. And I hope that you
have a lot of space to rest. maybe read.
I send you lots of love and many hugs.
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