Some of these questions shade into the issue of addiction, which has a psychological and physiological dimension, and when we come to aversions and physical emotions like disgust a dividing line between the biological and cultural is almost purposefully obscured. In general, I would argue that any strict division between thoughtful conscious decision making and unconscious habitual behaviour is a sociological and historical artefact which has no particular relevance to understanding the reality of everyday life. As Halkier says, ‘a sharp distinction between reflexive and routinized consumption practices is impossible to sustain in empirical analysis’ (2001: 27). Real life occupies the space between thought and habit, in a more complex and textured, perhaps layered, wrapped or enfolded space area of partial consciousness. While Halkier conceptualizes this as an ‘overlap’ or as ‘contingency’, below I propose that this terrain is more complex and intricate, and we still need to explore it fully.
Subjective Experience – What Do Routines and Habits Feel Like?
The pace of a habit seems to carry me along, like a jostling crowd. I can see where I am going, but I cannot stop. There is a compulsion behind me, pushing. It is like gravity, easy to fall down the well, just following the stream, as if you are running in a set of grooves worn in the pavement through years of traffic.
I can push back. But it is like swimming upstream and sometimes it is exhausting. If I keep pressing against the habit, though, eventually the resistance starts to diminish. But some habits lie in wait, even after they appear to be broken. You think you have left them behind, but then you find yourself falling back into a familiar habit in a moment of stress, while your attention is somewhere else. Your body is performing the routine again before you know it, following an unwanted path without you, like riding a bicycle into an abyss.
I tried brushing my teeth holding the brush in my left hand instead of my right. The new action does not feel right the first few times. It has a nagging feeling, like a tooth with a chip in it, you cannot stop running your tongue over that spot. You have to keep doing it, until eventually the feeling of wrongness slowly fades away. It is more like you just forget to feel the wrongness one day – you are distracted by something else and your attention does not return. The next thing you know you are doing it without thinking about it. You forget to worry, and go on without thinking.
Getting a new habit going is climbing uphill at first, but you hope eventually you will get somewhere where you can relax and coast. It is like an investment in the future. The hard work you are doing in the present is a big distraction, but maybe once you get going it can become automatic and you won’t have to think about it anymore. Your body will take over, and your mind can move on to other things.
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• Richard Wilk