Chances are, if you're reading this, you're one of the 7 billion humans inhabiting the planet we call Earth. That's cool. Welcome!
As humans we are dependent on patterns, rhythms, and cycles. These patterns, rhythms, and cycles exist from the atomic scale (and maybe smaller) to the galactic scale, and beyond. Patterns, rhythms, and cycles transcend our physical existence and pervade our cognitive, psychological, and emotional processes.
Just as patterns, rhythms, and cycles are essential to our existence and our survival, when they become routine, that is they pervade our thought and behavior patters so extensively that we no longer acknowledge their presence in or contribution to our lives, we as humans lose that fundamental key to our survival, innovation.
Innovation of thought, technological innovation, even innovation in practice have been the keys to our our advancement as a species. Evolutionarily, controlling fire was an innovation that changed they way we lived and the way we interacted with our environment. Development of tools- an innovation; agriculture- innovation; The Enlightenment- innovation; every religion ever devised- innovations, manufacturing- innovation. The list is extensive. Each of these innovations fundamentally changed how humans experience the patterns, rhythms, and cycles of our existence.
The innovation world of recent has recently refocused and rebranded itself as the economy of disruption. Rhetorical analysis of this term implies that patters, rhythms, and cycles have allowed for goods and ideas to be commodified and given economic value. Much of our society is built on manufacture, use, and refinement of these commodities. As such they have value. Innovation has become disruption of established models.
Routine is the enemy of innovation, yet we strive to develop and maintain routines throughout our society. I would posit that routine is a mental state which embraces established patterns, rhythms, and cycles so fully and so completely that cognitive engagement, thought, becomes obsolete. Humans thrive on routine- Taco Tuesday, morning coffee, sports seasons, annual vacations, even yearly celebrations of birthdays, holidays, and events can become routine. Many people embrace routine in their professional and personal lives. Changes to routine evoke visceral responses and only a small percentage of them are productive. Not every disruption is a productive one, not every innovation is necessarily for the better, they are just changes to patterns, rhythms, and cycles; changes to routine.
In this blog, I hope to document some thoughts about routine, about innovation, and about the impact of these on our lives as humans. I hope that I can make regular posts to this blog, but I hope never to offer routine offerings. I hope that I can get some readers to make this journey with me. I might try reaching out to innovators to get their take on patterns, rhythms, and cycles in their personal and professional lives. I hope that innovators from all walks of live can be samples, so that I (we) might learn how to embrace innovation in all its forms to enrich our own lives and those of our fellow humans.
