Lipton’s Journal/February 14, 1955/608: Difference between revisions

Which is where an understanding of habit comes in. Habit is the suspension of the gambling-faculty——{{LJ:Juggler}} is given his sleep. To live in society demands habits. Otherwise, the Juggler would be overworked. (The Juggler works while we sleep, rest—generally—while we act and move. Each night the Juggler lays out the choices for tomorrow, makes the Great Debates, and judges them by his lights).

But the Juggler to conserve his energy frequently makes the decision to take the most irreconcilable, the most difficult-to—decide of the choices and freeze it, make it a habit, a habit which will not be broken until he decides that the health of the body-mind (homeostasis) ''radically'' demands it. Which could account for the over-determination of neurotic symptoms. Choice-energy must not be wasted. In order for Life to function amidst Other-Life in the Body-Mind, a day to day altering of habit will exhaust the {{LJ:lerve}}—Symbolically, a habit is to brain as a shell-fragment is to the flesh—to disgorge it is a surgeon’s decision. Each “destructive” habit becomes more difficult to disgorge as one grows older and the lerve wanes—which is why we cannot carry the impediments of youth in middle-age.