Chanced upon this while reading Different by Youngme Moon.
This book is magical in how it captures the intangible so aptly and translate them into terms that we can actually grasp. Its like describing the mechanics of Life in scientific language. Language that we can make sense of. Here's an extract (among many ) which set me thinking:


" When we are overwhelmed by discontinuity, we hunger for stability, which means that something as basic as a photograph here, an armchair there, can provide ballast to an otherwise unsettled psyche. When I was preparing my children to start kindergarten, their teacher, Mrs. Selman, recommended that we send them to school on their first day with some kind of counterwight -- a favorite stuffed animal, a blanket, a toy -- that would help anchor them as they entered the scary world of chalkboards and desks and cafeterias. What Mrs. Selman understood was that when we are overwhlelmed by change, a small token of familiarity can be comfort food for the soul.


On the other hand, when our lives are saturated with sameness, the overall effect can be desensitizing; too much familiarity has an odd way of rendering things invisble. I have driven from my office to my house so many times that I can pull into my driveway with no recollection of the ride that got me there. I can walk through the front door of my home and the surroundings will barely register. Somehow, a lack of impression has turned into a lack of perception. This is the understated zen of familiarity : It doesn't so much provide pleasure as it removes provocation.


Ellen Langer is a psychologist who has spent much of her career studying a phenomenon that she calls mindlessness. Mindlessness refers to our tendency to perform on autopilot, without thinking, and it's typically the result of "over-learning" -- of becoming so used to responding in a certain manner that we're not even aware that we're doing it anymore. When we act mindlessly, there is mental inertia even in the presence of physical motion. Langer probably wouldn't put it this way, but too much yin without enough yang can get a little mind-numbing.


What this means is that sameness is one of those qualities that is best meted out in proper dosages. I will sometimes play this game with my students where I'll ask them to ignore their assigned seating and sit in a different spot for the day, just to shake things up; it's my way of rearranging the furniture to make the room feel fresh again. Mrs. Selman has her own version of this: By the end of every school year, her kindergarteners are so habituated to the daily routine that she'll take them on field trips, bring in classroom visitors, anything to counteract the doldrums.


When it comes to the unity of opposites, in other words, it's all about the balance. Similarity is stasis; difference is motion. And if the two happen to exist in dyniamic equilibrium, everything is right in the world. We feel grounded, but we feel stimulated, too. We get our dosage of experientially bland carbohydrates, but not in quantities that wouldmake us lethargic. However, if too many days pass by without a trace of turbulence, that's when the listlessness starts to set in. We feel sluggish, we feel restless. And we find ourselves craving some strange fruit.