A Minor Habit.

I was playing a tune for the first time on my guitar and happened to play a minor third instead of the major. No prob, get it next time, right? No. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. No. What was happening? By getting it wrong the first time I had acquired a micro habit. I had to play it over and over to overwrite wrong habit with the right one. Yes you might be equipped with the finest sensory apparatus in Gods creation but after that it’s all habit. I suspect 99% of what I do is the result of simply applying the most appropriate habit from my extensive collection. I have for example several habits for opening doors. Knob, lever, latch require turn, press, lift, followed by pull or push, or if I encounter an ultra modern door of the 50’s, slide. What we endearingly call experience is in fact just a panoply of habits, simply our magnificent brain serving up the usual suspects. I guarantee if I made a lever handle that required pulling out to release, it would be tantamount to putting a lock on it. A wide vocabulary of experience or habit is very useful, but I believe it’s worth taking the more disparaging view that habit is the source of our responses, not our vast worldly wisdom and understanding. One simply cannot get up oneself to the same degree if one is aware one is just the victim of one’s own repetitions. Politicians, generals, experts of all sorts do not possess the same glowing acumen if they are seen as just trotting out their old habits in new, usually inappropriate situations. Even us lesser mice would do well to challenge the usefulness of our automatic habitual reactions. It is beholden of schools for example to instil good habits of learning rather than attempting to install information because habits last a lifetime where knowledge quickly fades if unused. Schools would do well to listen to parents of children with healthy teeth. They inculcate the habit; they don’t provide information about future tooth decay or trust their offspring will, given sufficient freedom and personal self-esteem, find their own solution. On the other hand rising above habit gives the wondrous joy of spontaneity. So what to do next? Ay yes, get dressed, make a cup of tea, have a fag, put on coat and go to Sainsburys. Have a nice day.