Rhythms of Habit: Premise 1

What follows is a draft of part of the introduction to Rhythms of Habit, in which I share five premises which undergird much of the argument of the book.

Premise 1: There are older, better ways to think about what it means to be human.

We live in a world of versions. This is perhaps one of the most unsung aspects of the technological age. New technology is being developed so rapidly—and that new technology is being made obsolete so rapidly—that we have all grown so used to version numbers that we hardly recognize them.

By the time you figure out how to use all of the features of your brand new iPhone 12, you are finding yourself pressured into upgrading to the iPhone 15. Your cell phone, your video game console, computer, smart home devices, and every app you have ever used all have versions that change rapidly.

Think back to some historically significant technological advances in previous ages. The printing press—a large machine that took serious training to operate well—was certainly improved upon over the years, but not with the same pace or planned obsoletion that we are experiencing in the world of technology today. There is a very good chance that you operated the same physical press at the beginning of your apprenticeship as you did decades later.

There are certainly some remnants of this in certain industries today, but those remnants buck the trend.

Why does this all matter?

The world of versions that we inhabit is training us to adopt—in the extreme—something that humans have always been tempted to adopt: a firm belief that newer is always better. That older is old for a reason, and that we have thankfully moved on. That all of human life is currently at the state of the art.

If efficiency and scale are your highest metrics, then yes, the world of automobiles is at the state of the art. There have never been more efficient vehicles produced on such a massive scale as there are today.

But is this true of all industries, trades, and crafts? Of all arenas of human life? Are we doing all things as well today as we ever have done them? It does not take long to find examples that lead you to answer, “no.”

Since this is a book about humans as moral beings, I would pose the question this way: Does our culture have a robust understanding of what it means to be human? Does it even have a coherent answer to the question What makes us human? What distinguishes a human being from another mammal? What distinguishes a human mind from a collection of code? Do our schools, places of business, civil leaders, and churches operate from an understanding of what it means to live as moral beings?

The answer is no, with some excellent exceptions. But you didn’t need me to tell you that we are broadly unequipped as a society to think about these things.

So let’s think about this same question from another angle, from a positive one.

Where did you last find glimmers of understanding, hope, and awe? When was the last time you read something, encountered a great work of art, or were otherwise drawn into a deeper understanding of what it means to be a fully alive human being?

The chances are high that what you encountered in those moments was something classic. You experienced something timeless - something that resonates with the best answers to the best questions about what it means to experience human life.

Perhaps you have found something like the Enneagram to be a helpful tool for understanding your own natural tendencies, and for understanding those of others with whom you live and work and play. The Enneagram may have hit social media only in the past several years, but it is a very old way of understanding human personality.

Perhaps you have, like me, been encouraged by the amount of literature being produced today about healthy practices that lead to human flourishing. It may be the case that the author of the book you encountered these ideas in is not even aware of how ancient their ideas are, but that does not make them any less timeless.

With some glorious exceptions, our modern culture is ill-equipped to teach us what it means to be human, especially when it comes to thinking about the human as a moral being. But this has not always been the case.

There are older, better ways to think about what it means to be human. This book is an exploration of one of those ways.