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I've always liked §295 of The Gay Science where Nietzsche makes the distinction between "brief" and "enduring" habits:

"I love brief habits and consider them an inestimable means for getting to know many things and states, down to the bottom of their sweetness and bitternesses...

Enduring habits I hate, and I feel as if a tyrant had come near me and as if the air I breathe had thickened when events take such a turn that it appears that they will inevitably give rise to enduring habits...

Most intolerable, to be sure, and the terrible par excellence would be for me a life entirely devoid of habits, a life that would demand perpetual improvisation. That would be my exile and my Siberia."

(http://clichereality.blogspot.com/2009/07/philosopher-as-tra...)




I like that idea, habits as the basis of improvisation, and visa versa.

But, I believe it does pay to have some constants in life. Perhaps not a habit per se, but common theme to habits.




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