When Rhythm Carries Life

 

When Rhythm Carries Life

I have gradually become aware of something simple in my own life:
I go to bed at the same time each evening. I wake up at the same time each morning. I sleep well. I allow myself a short rest in the afternoon. And I drink my three cups of coffee—without restlessness, without any disturbance of sleep.

Morning has broken: In the quiet repetition of morning, life gathers itself.

From the outside, this may look like routine.
Perhaps even like rigidity.

But is it?

In Repetition, Søren Kierkegaard introduces a concept that sheds light on this question: repetition. Not as empty habit, but as something existentially necessary. He writes:

“Repetition and recollection are the same movement, only in opposite directions…”
(Kierkegaard, 1843/1983, p. 131)

Without repetition, life dissolves into fragments. Yet repetition without inwardness becomes lifeless—a mere sequence of actions without meaning.

The question, then, is not whether we have routines,
but whether we inhabit them.

In a different, but related way, Martin Heidegger reflects on everyday life in Being and Time. He is critical of what he calls das Man—the anonymous “one” in which we lose ourselves:

“We take pleasure and enjoy ourselves as ‘one’ takes pleasure…”
(Heidegger, 1927/1962, §27)

Here, routine becomes something unowned—something we simply drift along with.

And yet, Heidegger does not reject everyday life. Rather, he points toward the possibility of dwelling in it—of being present within the ordinary rhythms of existence. To be human is not to escape repetition, but to find a way of being at home within it.

There is an old image from another world.
In ancient Egypt, the rising of the sun was bound to divine order. The god Ra journeyed through darkness each night to rise again at dawn. The pharaoh did not simply rule a people—he was seen as a guarantor of the order that made the sun’s return possible.

The world held together because order was maintained.

From where we stand, this may sound like myth.
And yet, there is something in it that still speaks.

This morning, the light returned once again.
Not because I commanded it.
Not because I held the world together.

But because the world, in its own way, continues.

Between Kierkegaard and Heidegger, and this ancient image, a quiet question emerges:

Is repetition something that empties life—or gives it form?
Are routines expressions of unfreedom—or conditions for freedom?

In my own life, the answer is not abstract.

The rhythm I live in does not feel like a constraint.
It feels like a kind of support.

It allows space for rest, for thought, for attention.
It holds the day together without closing it.

Perhaps this is where practical philosophy begins—
not in grand theories,
but in the texture of lived experience.

And perhaps, in the end, the question is not:

Do I live in routines?

But:

Do these rhythms allow me to become present in my own life?

References 

Kierkegaard, S. (1983). Repetition (H. V. Hong & E. H. Hong, Trans.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1843)

Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and Time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). Harper & Row. (Original work published 1927)

I have written the text and created the illustrations in a morning conversation with OpenAI/ChatGTP