Routines

by Paul Amistoso

22 November 2012
Discussed text: Levinas, "There Is, Ethics and Infinity


You are woken up by your annoyingly effective alarm clock. You roll over to one side of the bed and reach for the snooze button. Five minutes later, you get up, brush your teeth, wash your face, and proceed to cooking breakfast. Once that’s done with, you take a shower, brush your teeth, and take a look at your face through the mirror. It looks the same as always. You go to school and come back home a few hours after. On some days, you go out with friends. On other days, you spend time with your girlfriend in your room. At the end of the day, you take a shower, brush your teeth, and take a look at your face through the mirror. It looks the same as always.

This may seem eerily familiar for some of you but for the longest time, this was how I lived, day in and day out, in my quiet apartment room. I’ve always been the type of person who prefers having a routine. After all, having a routine is safe and prevents you from having to go through burdensome things. I preferred simply drifting along, always trying not to disturb the flow of things. I was content.

Of course, a routine can only be maintained if all the elements that comprise it keep running. As soon as my relationship with one person ended, I got lost. A very big aspect of my everyday life had disappeared.  In an effort to distract myself from how I was feeling, I decided to keep busy. I accepted work here and there. I took up projects here and there. I went to places I’ve never had the time to go to back then. I finally spent time with friends whose invitations I’ve always declined back then. In the past few weeks, I’ve met more people than I have ever had in the past year. Before I knew it, I was having so much fun that the reason I started doing all of those things no longer seemed relevant. I found one thing strange, however. With the way things are going right now, I am far from content. Every minute, I’m itching to do something new and to go places I have yet to see. I am discontented, I am dissatisfied, and yet, I am happy.

 Surprisingly, I found my answer when Dr. Garcia started talking about il y a. As far as I could remember with my lousy attention span, he defined il y a as a lethargy, a lack of activity, and a lack of initiative. He described it as simply prodding along with no goal, no “star”, and no direction. Come to think of it, he used many words to paint what il y a is but the words that struck me the most were “lost” and “contentment”. How I felt finally made sense when he definitively said that contentment is not necessarily equal to happiness.

I was definitely content with how things were going back then. However, there was something at the back of my mind that bugged me from time to time. I had always brushed it off, ignoring it, and keeping it there, at the back of my head. Now, however, it all makes – I was unhappy. It’s ridiculous how it took me all this time to realize it. Perhaps, I may have already realized it long ago but was simply too afraid, simply too hesitant, and simply too comfortable. I was too comfortable with “il y a-ing” that I ignored my own unhappiness.

This may be what Dr. Garcia has always meant when he prays with the class, “Disturb us, O Lord”. As he had said earlier, perhaps the biggest temptation of man is the desire to not be disturbed. Perhaps, great disturbances are actually opportunities for us to get out of il y a, to get out of our routines, to get out of our contentment.

With that, I leave you a song that basically sums up what getting out of il y a is all about.