'Esoterifying' your life

On making good habits diabolically boring

When I was but a wee third-grader, wading through life in the American public schooling system, I had a teacher: Mr. P. Overall, Mr. P was a pretty cool guy, but he had an odd quirk, even for a teacher. He was obsessed with "reflection". Every day, at then end of the day, when all we could think about was going home, he'd have us reflect on the day we just had. We would get about 15 minutes to collect our thoughts and introspect about what we had done.

Now at this point in my life, being told to reflect was synonymous with punishment and consequence - two things I preferred to avoid. Up to that point, reflection was something that was demanded of my when I did something wrong. If I acted out at home, my parents would have me stand in a corner and think about what I'd done. In school, this usually took the form of writing, and I would be made to explain why and how I had done what I had done. Needless to say, the idea of reflection didn't sit well with me because it came paired with the assumption that I had done something wrong and was being punished. So, for that school year, my reflections were made up of a list of things that I had done each day, accompanied by the most banal, superficial description of what I liked and disliked about each of the day's activities.

Needless to say, I got very little genuine reflection done throughout the entirety of this 'year of reflection'. Mr. P didn't stop at daily reflections though. He would constantly sing the praises of self-reflection, giving pointed meditations on what he had learned from the practice, and what it meant to him. I was a shithead kid and I didn't like reflection, so I didn't listen.

Mr. P, trying to convince us to remember things

Many years later, I dipped my toes into journaling at the request of my older sister. She said it had helped her organize her thoughts. At the time, I felt extremely overwhelmed about my life and what I thought was expected of me, so I gave writing about it a shot.

Journaling was great, and throughout the process I discovered what genuine introspection was. It wasn't about parroting the happenings of the day, it was a deep dive into my own perception - how I viewed things, where I spent my time and attention, how I felt about thing, etc. It felt like it was helping, so I kept it up. I can't say I'd be the person I am today without it. It gave me a much clearer mirror with which to look at my life, and I finally understood why Mr. P was so crazy about it.

Then, a few years after that, a new 'practice' crossed my mind. I watched a Youtube video on esotericism and the concept of initiation. The guy in the video described a process of 'remembrance', in which each day, at the end of the day, the initiate would remember the happenings of the day, going backwards. In as much detail as possible, the initiate was called upon to mentally traverse their entire day - from end to beginning. It struck me as odd and somewhat interesting, but not too distinct from any other reflective practice.

At this point, he began to describe all of the ancient, esoteric orders who had their initiates adopt this practice as a matter of profound importance. The Pythagoreans stressed it immensely, with a focus on reliving one's day twice - both directly before sleep, and immediately upon waking. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn had a similar tradition for initiates as a means of training one's memory for the recitation of rites.

All of this is to say that, by the end of the video, I was hooked. The process - one that I had already struck me as beneficial of its own merit - had suddenly become 'mysterious and important' to me. I took it upon myself to try it out immediately, and I began dedicating a few minutes right before bed to replaying the events of the day in my head, from end to beginning. With time, things began to jump out at me - patterns of behavior that were depressing me, people that were repeatedly bringing me down, things that I would do habitually without any conscious realization. Paired with the occasional bout of journaling, my bad habits and associations were lined up and knocked down over the ensuing months.

Me remembering the birria tacos I made for dinner (mysteriously and esoterically)

On top of all of the self-reflection, other benefits began to to manifest. My sessions compressed and I was able to get through my day in greater and greater detail within an ever-shortening timespan. Over the course of a few minutes each and every night, my entire day would flutter through my mind like a first-person reverse timelapse. Over time, my poor memory - something upon which my friends and family had poked fun at me for years - became much more efficient. On an intuitive level, the passage of time simply 'made more sense', and my mind was sharper for it.

And now, reflecting back on all of this - from Mr. P to Pythagoras - the lesson was painfully obvious. In life, some things are just good maintenance. You don't do them for some immediate benefit, or because it feels good - you do it because it's a little present for future you. A little action aimed not towards present pleasure, but future meaning.

But that was a rather obvious conclusion. I'm not the biggest proponent of people calling upon you to "romanticize your life" - the movement has certainly run its course, and it always stuck out as a pretty narcissistic endeavor. There is a striking fragment of truth to it, though - when it comes to some things, you really need to sell yourself on them.

In part because of his delivery, and in part because of my lack of interest, Mr. P's immense effort did very little to sell me on the practice of reflection. But, years later, when some small, random Youtuber reframed a very healthy reflective practice as some esoteric rite of self-initiation, I was immediately hooked. Since then I've stuck to this practice every single night - missing out on only a handful of occasions.

We all have those things in life that we 'wished' we were doing. Whether we're working towards our dream job or some far-flung achievement, or simply trying to be better human beings, we all have a number of little habits that we know - if repeated - would set us on a better path, with very little personal sacrifice.

So, If there’s anything good that has come of our algorithm-obsessed age of techno-futurism and the endless, optimized marketing strategies behind everything we lay our eyes on, it’s that very mindset applied to self improvement.

Borrow the strategies of the things that intrigue you. If something has real potential to improve your life, and you’re having trouble pulling the trigger on it, sell it to yourself again. Optimize the marketing strategy of your good habits. Make it mysterious, make it intriguing, and make it alluring. Do that - and you'll have prime material for a much better use of your time than sitting in front of a screen, rotting away.

Now get off Substack and start doing that thing you’ve been putting off - you know the one (pretty please🥺).

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