Super duper simple BUT

Before I leave the house, my right hand traces a path from my temple to my right pocket, right belt loop and back right pocket. The modern version of 'Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch' I suppose. 'Glasses, keys, phone, wallet' doesn't have quite the same ring to it though.

I've locked myself out of my house and car a bunch of times as a younger person and the experience ingrained this ritual rather deeply. Lessons will be taught until they are learned.

Also, full deep clean of the house before every trip, doesn't matter if it's two days or two weeks.

Nothing worse than coming home from a nice vacation to a pigsty.

Whenever I come home from work, I immediately greet my fiance and land in the comfort of his arms. This has recently extended to him lifting me up and cracking my back basically as a reflex. I feel so loved, and it's really hard to bring any work stress home after this.

As for a ritual with just me... Maybe that comes after I graduate. I do remember other rituals I had involving writing and organizing but that was before my adult job and an extremely fulfilling relationship. It's interesting to think about how my rituals have changed as I grow as person and seem to correlate with the different things influencing me at any given time. I want to think that I'm more than just what I do for work but sometimes I think I draw a lot of personal pride from having accepted a role of responsibility and fulfulling it.

I wake up at 6:16 every day, because I was born at 6:16. The only time this rule is broken is when I need to be up earlier.

During the school year, the 6:16 wake up is followed by making my bed, breakfasting with a friend, and the slog across campus for an hour and a half or so of cello practicing before class.

Right now my rituals are all out of whack because I have neighbors and I play a loud instrument. So I twiddle my thumbs before work and then practice after work. So weird.

I'm a spiritual and religious person - that brings a bunch of ritual with it.

On the daily:

I pray individually. Yes... good old fashioned man talking to the sky, believing someone is listening. It's my time to reflect and have a serious gratitude session.

I pray with my wife.

I pray with my family.

I make the bed - not because I like a neatly made bed - but for the reason listed above "any actions or events that have symbolic meaning beyond their instrumental value". Making my bed is the first success of the day and sets me on a course of success for the rest of it.

I brush and floss. I know.... it's probably NOT more important than it's instrumental value... but it IS RIDICULOUSLY IMPORTANT and I regret not doing it sooner. I have spent TENS of THOUSANDS of dollars on my family's mouths.... do your future self a favor. FLOSS.

On the weekly:

I date my wife. We go out on a date at least once a week. It's important for the long term stability of our relationship and marriage. It's definitely meaningful beyond the instrumental value. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Family Time. Every Monday night (sometimes we move it) my wife and I and our kids get together as a family, sing songs, play instruments, talk about our week, read something inspiring, and just connect generally.

I have various assignments from church that involve helping others. These assignments change often and morph slightly, but the core principle and objective remains the same: serve others.

I attend a weekly service where religious rites are performed. Some weeks I am going through the motions. Some weeks I am really focused and it's a powerful time of reflection and re-dedication.

On the regular:

There are other service projects, church social events and religious rites that I participate in on a less than weekly, but more than annual, but not quite monthly or quarterly basis that are equally important and serve others.

Not currently in the regiment (but looking for ways to incorporate or re-incorporate):

Yoga - I used to do 20-30 minutes every night before bed. I miss that.

Exercise - This is a no brainer. I should, but don't... and I have no explanation for it. There are some plans in the works...

Read - I actually do read... but I need to read about five times as much as I do now.

I listen to music in the shower and practice little dance moves first thing in the morning.

Some for lifting/gym training. Very specific things that don't do anything outside of mark mental cues for when it's 'go-time'.

The butt wiggle before a deadlift, the hands clasped before bench, the head nod (3x, no more, no less) before unracking a bar for a squat.

Actually, training itself is a sort of ritual. It signals the end of my day - I walk from work to my gym, then go about my training for the next couple of hours. Once I'm done there I'll hop on the bus or get in my car if I drove, and that's my day done. The ride home I'll listen to some soft music and unwind, before cooking dinner (which I find relaxing) and hanging out with my partner and flatmates.

An important one though, whenever I get home and my partner is already home, the first thing I do is seek her out and kiss her as a greeting. She's on to this now, so she'll hide and I have to earn that kiss. If I beat her home I'll hide and she has to find me for said smooch. I also leave for work before she gets up, so our morning ritual ends with me giving her a kiss on the cheek, and she'll sleepily turn her head to get another kiss on the lips, then I'm out the door.

I asked her once if this annoyed her as she's clearly still sleeping, but she said whatever her sleepiness conveys, she'd be distraught if I changed it up now.

As I've been trying to stay away from nicotine in the last week or so, I've developed a little ritual for dealing with cravings:

I ran a thought experiment based on a comment nil left for me (specifically this one) that got me thinking about the "animal experience" that we go through - our subconscious brain processes tell us that we're hungry, and we go seek out food based on our higher order thoughts...But we're still driven by our cravings, whether it be for food or sex or nicotine. For the sake of conversation, assume we're driven by our needs and that our conscience thought is a justification for those needs (whether you believe it or not).

So we've got this pipeline of urges that are pushed up to a certain level of awareness. All day, I have to sit in my cube and receive orders through this pipeline from my stupid lizard brain. Wouldn't it be neat if I could cram ideas back down the pipe, just to show that stupid lizard brain who's in charge?

So that's what I've been doing. Every time I feel a craving for nicotine, I spend a few minutes consciously attempting to feel satisfied with something. I'll just close my eyes, and think "Wow, I sure am full right now!" until the nicotine craving goes away.

The most insane part of this whole ritual is that it's actually been working for me. I'll try to feel satiated until I actually feel satiated, then I'll get back to whatever I was doing!

(By the by, the whole "Quit Smoking" thing is going well. I'm over my physical dependency, which is good. I had a really bad day at work trying to stay focused on anything other than how bad I wanted a smoke...But I made it, and it's getting easier!)

When painting, I must be either high or drunk. That's a fact! Otherwise, my paintings pretty much suck.

Every night I say goodnight to my chickens and shut them up in the coop. On my way back in, I stop by where we bury the ones who didn't make it and say goodnight to them too.

Sundays for me is a day of rituals, but from the outside probably looks more like a boring weekly routine. Before 12 I make a shopping list before going to the shared laundry room. While the machine is running I go for a walk in the park if the weather is nice and stop at the grocery store on the way home, otherwise I go straight to the grocery store. When I get home I book the laundry room for the next Sunday, hang the laundry to dry, clean my apartment, pay bills and look at my schedule for the next week. If it's a race weekend I might postpone the cleaning a couple of hours to watch Formula 1 or Indycar.

I've followed this "ritual" for maybe five years now. It started out as a way to deal with depressive episodes by forcing a reset and to start looking ahead and prepare mentally for the next week. After a while it stopped feeling like a chore and I began looking forward to the activities themselves and the small feeling of satisfaction of completing them, so I view it as a sort of secular ritual.

Before taking psychedelics, I place my hands over the substance and send forth as much loving energy as I can muster. When the feeling is right, then I ingest.

Recently I've started adding another aspect of the ritual. After ingesting, I sit in meditation until I feel the substance taking effect in my body. It's a very nice way of becoming aware of how my perception becomes altered.

Daily

1. Shower. I love showers and I do so each and every morning

2. Brush and floss teeth

3. Shave

4. Brush hair

5. Dress

6. Espresso (double)

7. Make the kids breakfast

8. Dress kids

9. Go to work

10. Daily meditation. (some days I miss)

Weekly

1. Tuesday morning Yoga with private instructor. Ashtanga

2. Take-out Tuesdays. We have friends and their kids over to eat take-out

3. Coals and Ice on Sunday's at our pool. Dinner, drinks and swimming with the kids and our friends

4. Starting next week: Thursday afternoon soccer practice. I'm the coach.

5. Saturdays: Soccer games

Most of my rituals revolve around work. I'll not get in to them. They're pretty boring and standard stuff.

I've got a new one! My therapist and I came up with this, since I struggle with feeling like I have to be available for everyone 24/7 or they'll stop loving me.

Saturdays are for me. I leave my phone turned off for the entire day. I wake up early, work out, go for a walk. Maybe I go down to the town creek, maybe I head to my favorite cafe and bring a book. I make music, either writing folk songs or producing some boom bap. I spend a few hours cooking, and eat well. Maybe I hang out with my roommate if he's around, but maybe not. I go to bed around 11.

I used to have private rituals, back when I still had friends.

Okay, I lied. I still have friends and we still do reckless shit. Because at the end of the day, we're the same people and reality is just one giant continuum. But time ticks by; we grow older. Before we know it, too much time has passed and we've missed the chance to have had other people hurt us. To a younger me this sounded like luck; to an older me this sounds like a quiet tragedy.

As a teenager, everything was an inside joke. Everything was a plan. Everything was a private language. Everything was an adventure. We started a fucking cult. Why did we start this cult? Because hydrogen is a colourless, odorless gas, that's why. We were playing hooky in Grade 11 law class. My high school also bred internationally acclaimed terrorists, two suicides, and mass-arrests of teenagers for alleged "bullying" that was never proved in court. A.k.a. person A acts like an asshole and person B, C, and D treat them like an asshole. But I was fucking there, still managing to witness 8 of my classmates be dragged out of school and sheep-herded into cop cars in grade 10 science because we're just getting started on this existential adventure.

And I thought that after becoming a young adult, getting a college degree with a good GPA, doing community involvement, whatever, I would suddenly understand all this madness. Like, I would become "mature" and get it. But no, all I've realized is we're all just children. And it doesn't make it easier when I occasionally interact with people under-18 and they treat me like an authority figure who a) knows everything and b) shouldn't ever make a pee-pee joke. That's why school in general sucks balls. I figure it's enshrined in the education act somewhere never to be honest or encourage kids to take responsibility for themselves. So you end up unable to function without rigid structures, over-rely on authority and can't define your own dreams and values.

Our musician friend decided to drive us out to the countryside while we were playing hooky. And we got lost.

We didn't know how to get back to the city. And we were going to be late. For third period. For some reason, this mattered at the time. Remember when you thought high school mattered, fellow adults? When you shared a sneaking suspicion this was all bullshit but there was a part of you that still thought they had it all together?

All of a sudden, we were there.

Waubuno

Plain white text on a blue background. A road sign. What the fuck is Waubuno?, someone in the car exclaimed. All I know is there was a horse in some farmer's field that turned his head in a certain direction that we were bound to follow. And sure enough, we were back there. The City.

But the legend continued, mainly because we couldn't ever find that place on Google Maps. It became an idea, a place you could only find when you were lost. A synonym for the imagination, for the dream, for the life we were certain was out there. That's why I can't stand these angsty-"life is shit" posts, because somehow, somewhere I knew, even back then, that the universe was created for the purpose of love. That "life is suffering" was somehow wrong.

All my friends in that stage of life were artists of some type. That was the crew I ran with. I still run with some of them to this day. And no, that didn't just mean we smoked weed. They were accomplished musicians. They played shows, put out albums, toured, at the age of like... 16. Indie-rock. Punk rock. The music was actually decent. I ended up at a lot of rock concerts. I kissed girls on the lips, which is fucking insane. Especially Frank Turner who is criminally responsible for teenage sex.

Of course, I was very adept at math and sciences but I was never close friends with any of those people. I could have been an engineer, or a pre-medicine major. But I couldn't stand those people. They seemed like they had never had a single day of fun in their entire lives. And not because of academic achievement, like shit, I had that, top grades, and my reckless friends still produced. but all the subtle shit of being alive just blew right past them. I have no idea what this is. The art experience? Love? And as much as I was intellectually capable of those things I had a strong emotional sense like it was the wrong direction to go. Stuff like genuinely believing smoking weed once was going to end your life, or waiting until you're legal drinking age to try a beer, or joining the military and avoiding teenage parties. Declaring your major as "nanotechnology engineering" and bragging about it in front of a cyclotron, ignoring how fucking fake that is. I'll take, "being too chicken to major in physics or doing electrical engineering like a normal person for $100, Alex")

Okay, I have ADD and am going off on asides. The doc is about to hook me up with Wellbutrin.

Rituals:

Toga - a ritual sleepover and a criminal conspiracy to piss of my brothers. Every. Single. Fucking. Friday. Night. For years. 4 dudes coming over to my dad's house (who was always pissed and didn't want kids over). We'd frequently leave the house and go on wild excursions, usually smoking weed in the schoolyard. That's what schools are as a third place in the community, kids during the day, teenagers getting high and peeing on them at night. Sometimes more advanced drugs, but we don't need to go there. We would say "toga this weekend?". We only wore togas once, I'll explain later.

Highway 420 - driving to a random location in the countryside with everyone high as shit (except the driver). Also a ritual. Stealing lawn gnomes and throwing flaming fruit out the window at 80km/h.

Power level - "Jeff's Balls" - the level I'm at. My friend's dad was named Jeff and told me the level I was at had lowered from his head to his balls after I screamed the word "cunt" in their house. You're at my fucking balls, nil! Your power level and go up or down depending on circumstances. And when it reaches its peak? Wow fucking buno.

The awkward handshakes, 2 of them. The first, one person holds their open hand steady and the second spins around and smacks it twice while rotating. On the third rotation, the second person makes a fist and punches the others open hand slightly. At no point during this does the first person move. The second handshake, both people intentionally miss a high five and awkwardly hug each other instead.

TIMS. It's a codeword. Enunciate it like crazy. Still do it. My brother and I will look eachother dead in the eyes, whisper the word "tims" softly under our breath, and then go right to fucking Timmies, usually without saying a word. Order a double-double and make fun of the fucking bible preachers hanging out inside.

"As above. So below". Me and that friend do it still. One person says "as above", and the other has to finish it.

So below.

Chanting "gay marriage" for no reason. Not as funny post-legalization.

shr00ms. You can never spell it the normal way, and you must always say it in an extremely high pitched voice. shr00ms!

"SON YOU COMING OVER to WATCH THE GAME?" - self-explanatory. Say in old-man voice.

"Skal", icelandic word for drink. Have to say it with a thick accent and loudly.

Cult initiation:

Our sixth friend Andrew was being initiated into the cult. All five of us were dressed in togas and went to pick him up from his apartment. He entered the van and we did not say a single word to him. Even when he pressed us. We took him back to my dad's house.

He was led to the back patio where he was forced to take three enormous bong tokes of very strong marijuana. At that point, he was completely comatose. He was then led by our friend into a darkened basement, into a backroom.

The backroom was set up to contain nothing but a table and chairs. The whole thing was candlelit, no lights. Some of us of us sat behind the table, dressed in nothing but togas, to "interview" him for his acceptance into our cult. We administered the test.

I remember sitting outside to guard the door. This was serious business.

The test containing several parts. First, he had to ensure he met the requirements, namely having the mental capacity to have a "good fucking time". Secondly, he had to answer a multiple-choice test of primarily inside jokes and mix-and-match internal slang and cowords for mind-expanding substances. Thirdly, he had to rank his political opinions on a sliding scale with 1 being "strongly disagree" and 5 being "strongly agree" on these geopolitical issues. It's a bit dated, but some of the questions were "Bastille is a good band" "The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a good idea", "The teachings of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ strongly guide my everyday life." The last part was an essay question of why he wanted to be our friend.

He had to sign an independent contractor agreement explaining the services we were going to provide to him in exchange for $60/year for the next ten years, "timmies ca$h". Our services were, "criticizing your favourite artist so hard you will want to kill yourself, bailing you out of jail if need be, making you cum so fucking hard you'll need bleach to clean up the stain spanning the length of your asshole to your scrotum, etc."

Finally he signed the contract and all five of us entered the room to mark, signed and ratify the document. He had to wait outside and awkwardly talk to my younger brother while still extremely intoxicated. He basically failed the test, but we gave him 68/69 on the essay question to make him pass.

We led him back into the room, this time five kids surrounding him all dressed in togas. One by one, we moved forward and spoke phrases to him.

"Frankie" - Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, the greatest band ever.

"Just go."- An interiorized voice we heard once while lost. We didn't know whether to turn left or right, so we just went.

"Wowbuno" - the word

"Dan smith" - lead singer of bastille

"ookachaka ooka ooka ookachaka" - something weird

Finally, all five of us holding the glass horse presented it to him. He had to carry that and the lawn gnome we had stole from the country all the way back to the mythical land of Waubuno to complete his initiation. If at any point his hands left those objects, he would fail.

We took him all the way there, and surely he passed. And that was it.