The frankie debate
James colley and deirdre fidge decide whether variety really is the spice of life.
YEAH IT IS BY JAMES COLLEY
I love a routine. The same outfits, lunch, path of walking is an ease and comfort to my mind. Not having to worry about what I need to do next allows me to more easily function in my day. Routine sustains me. But, as I am not a mechanical arm in a factory, it does not encompass all of me.
We need experimentation. We need variety. It’s more than just avoiding boredom – it’s a fundamental human requirement. Of course, variety can be frightening. It should be frightening – you’re trying something new. It’s the cheapest way for anxiety sufferers to engage in extreme sports. Sure, you might just be wearing a colour you’re not quite sure works on you, but all you know is your blood is pumping, you’re sweating, and you feel truly alive.
Brace yourself, because this next point relies on a slightly brutal question, but to those of you lodged in a daily routine, I have to ask: Are things really going that well? Are you crushing it? Is your routine enduring because every day is a ray of sunshine from the moment you rise until the moment you drop? Or is it just a thing you do? Regular habits are comfortable, sure, but the big question to ask yourself is whether you’ve settled into that comfort because you’re finally happy, or because unpredictability is scary. If it’s happiness, more power to you, but I suspect it’s not, on the basis that no one is happy, really. (Yes, I’m a joy to be around.)
The problem is that routines have inertia. One activity triggers the next, and the more we wear ourselves into a groove, the harder it is to break out. That’s why it’s so important to ask if your routine actually brings joy into your life, or if it’s something you’ve scrambled to pull together, and now it works just enough that you’re afraid to tinker in case it all falls apart. But, maybe it’s worth letting it fall. Something that only works for you by imprisoning you cannot be right for you.
Break your routine! You’re free! You’re in control!
Consider this: you probably didn’t absolutely nail your choices when you were 15. It’s not your fault. We were all in a mad panic, trying to find some identity for ourselves that was distinct enough to make us feel like an individual, but conformed enough to let us hide from the glaring light of high school judgment. It’s the wild panic that led to the worst haircuts of our lives, the strangest posters on our bedroom walls and the re-emergence of ska music for a (thankfully) short period. But you didn’t stick with those questionable choices. You moved on – good job!
It’s OK to grow and change. You should be a better person today than you were yesterday. We’re all somewhat incomplete, and the only way to do anything about it is to experiment. Take a step towards something new. Maybe it’ll be a terrible mistake and you’ll wind up endlessly embarrassed and scrubbing your skin and shame away with a bar of soap. But that’s fine. You’ve found one more thing that doesn’t work for you! Now, you get to try again.
Variety isn’t just a good thing – it’s the only thing. We’re here to fart about. We are the hedonistic acolytes of the universe, built to indulge ourselves with new experiences. To do anything else is a disservice to yourself. There’s a big world out there and you can’t let yourself be voluntarily caged. But most importantly – and I cannot stress this enough – I am not legally responsible for whatever weird thing you do in search of variety in your life.
NUH-UH BY DEIRDRE FIDGE
I never knew soup could be so divisive until I started a new job. A few years back I worked in an office, and every day for the entire 18 months I worked there, I had soup for lunch. It was the exact same lentil and vegetable soup that I would cook up in a batch on a Sunday afternoon. I carried it to work in the same sturdy tupperware container, and poured it into the same blue and white bowl at the same time each day. (I even had a favourite spoon.) Some of my colleagues were horrified, and that’s when I realised it wasn’t about soup at all. It was the lack of variety that caused them unease.
Their shrieks of “Aren’t you bored?” or “Don’t you want to try the new place down the road?” were met with my polite, soupy smile. “No, this is tasty. And it saves me money,” I’d say. This compulsion people have to always try new things is very odd. It makes sense if something isn’t ideal within your circumstances – by all means, move suburbs if you hate your neighbours, take up a new hobby if you’ve always wanted to crochet, get a haircut if you’re a white guy with dreadlocks. But I like to live by the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ ethos.
It’s worth noting that even the man who coined the phrase we’re debating did not live by his own advice. In 1785, poet William Cowper wrote variety’s the spice of life / that gives it all its flavour in part II of his epic six-part poem, The Task. Now, I absolutely did attempt to read the full poem… but part II alone is 833 lines long, and the other sections are just as extensive. (Old mate needed an editor to remind him to keep it snappy. He would have been crap at Twitter.) During my skimming, though, I did notice all his poems follow the exact same iambic pentameter, and are the same length. So, clearly even Willy himself didn’t really believe we should shake things up too much – otherwise he would have thrown in a limerick, or maybe a wee haiku, just to break things up a bit.
I recently learnt that a movie-streaming service surveyed their customers, and the majority of people said they wanted to see new and exciting things on their homepage: films they’d never heard of, latest cinematic releases, unseen gems. But you know what they found people actually did? Rewatched Friends for the hundredth time. Seriously. We like what we like, and in this uncertain, literally burning world we live in, sometimes it’s deeply reassuring to know the ending in advance. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with routine, habits or comfort. I wish inspirational cushions would stop telling me to get out of my comfort zone. I like it here! It’s warm and cosy, and I have my favourite snacks! Go away!
We all know the experience of feeling like we shouldn’t order our usual meal at a café, only to be deeply disappointed with the edible experiment that arrives. And why? Because of teasing from our friends, or feeling like routine automatically equals boredom? There’s no need to force yourself away from what you enjoy out of shame or social pressure. Apparently change is as good as a holiday, but really, the only thing as good as a holiday is an actual holiday. So unless someone wants to pay for my ticket to a tiny Greek island, I’m going to keep eating my lentil soup in my favourite old slippers, while rewatching The Wedding Singer.