Topic

Habit

Habit in this collection is the machinery by which character becomes actual rather than merely intended. Bacon's choose-the-most-useful-life-and-habit-makes-it-agreeable is the foundational claim: we do not choose the pleasant life directly; we choose a practice and discover the pleasure through repetition. Aristotle's we-are-what-we-repeatedly-do has the force of definition. Jefferson's walking-as-exercise illustrates the principle at its most modest: the good life is made of small repeated acts. Goethe on friends and their necessary quirks gives habit its social dimension: the patterns that seem like flaws are part of the person we have grown to know. Disraeli on daily amiability destroying one's nerves is the honest counter: not all habits are voluntary, and some of the most demanding are those imposed by social life. Kipling on youth as a habit she could not part with is the most poignant entry: identity itself can become habitual, persisting past the conditions that created it.