The Excitable Membrane

More than any other chapter of The Principles so far, the one on Habit really gives the sense that James is trying to work through something, for himself. I see a lot of guilt and self-contempt in these pages; lofty, troubled, and complex feelings about work and responsibility. When I take the view from 10,000 feet, I kind of read this like an attempt to naturalize notions of biblical sloth and virtue, to give a biological basis of that New Englandy brand of get-on-it-ness that sees saintliness and heroism in hyperproductivity. (And yes, I know there’s plenty of my own projection at work here).

When James says “[t]here is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual” he was almost certainly speaking from experience. As sound and convincing as he is when talking about how to put habit to work for one’s self, I think this is offered more in the spirit of ‘if I had life to do all over again‘ than ‘here’s what’s worked for me.‘ He was terrible at making up his mind, and didn’t settle on a career until his thirties. He procrastinated to a ridiculous degree when prepping lectures. He had fitful sleep throughout his life, and waged an eternal, unwinnable battle against distraction and postponement. The benefits of habit that he discusses — diminished mental fatigue and diminished conscious attention — are things he yearned for, not things he recognized or attained in his own life.

If he were alive today, I suspect we’d think of James as someone with ADHD — a condition(?)/disorder(?)/impairment(?)/difference(?) — in whose teeth I have long suffered myself. I’ve been reluctant to take it on as a defining label or excuse, but regardless of any pointless stoicism I have about this, it’s definitely the case that there’s a quite specific set of organizational skills and mental dispositions that I lack utterly, and whose absence in my life remains an enduring source of embarrassment, frustration, and fatigue.

Having a child who also suffers has definitely given me some more self-compassion. I can see that the many and small piles of unfinished things in my life aren’t shortcomings of the spirit — even if they still feel that way. They’re more like the extended phenotype of a nervous system that cannot properly leverage habit, that can’t quite find that gear that places the body into the “effortless custody of automatism.” If habit formation is the blissful release of the mind from the burden of available alternatives, the ADHD mind is nothing but alternatives. One is always at the mercy of the incidental and the just encountered. Attempts to streamline and organize just reveal additional nested dolls of disorganization, only the inner dolls are messes that are larger and more fundamental. One knows the papers need to be put away, and actually does want to put them away. But where? There is no folder waiting for them. And what sense does a folder make, anyway, without a filing cabinet (which, of course, we also don’t have). Everything is a massive effort, a starting anew, a starting all over.