Ritual | Kaelan

A ritual is a routine with intention. The actions are the same each time, but the repetition means something. Morning coffee is routine. Morning coffee as the signal that deep work begins is ritual.

The daily run at 6am doesn’t require deciding whether to run. The decision was made when the ritual was established.

Alarm rings, shoes go on. Coffee finishes, notebook opens. Over time the connection strengthens until it feels less like discipline and more like gravity.

A ritual practiced 300 times a year accumulates into identity. The person who runs every morning becomes a runner. The person who writes every morning becomes a writer.

Aristotle: we are what we repeatedly do.

Religious traditions understood this. Prayer times, Sabbath rest, fasting periods, seasonal festivals. The calendar was dense with ritual — each marking time, each carrying meaning.

Secular modernity stripped most of these away without replacing them. Every day the same, no moment sacred.

I notice the flatness. I’m not sure what to do about it.