Spontaneous Routine/ Adventurized

In sociology, the dimension of adventure has been most explicitly examined by Georg Simmel (1971), but themes such as spontaneity, variation, and routine have repeatedly been central to sociology. Simmel defines adventure as a “dropping out of the continuity of life,” something outside of ordinary life (Simmel, 1971). The memory of an adventure takes on the qualities of a dream; the more it was an adventure, the more dreamlike it becomes for us. Simmel also sees a similarity between the adventurer and the artist, for the artist, too, carves out a part of life’s continuity and transforms it into something greater. Simmel views the adventurer as the ahistorical individual, living in the present, for example, Casanova’s “erotic, adventurous life,” which was “dominated by the feeling of the present.” The adventurer allows chance to become part of a greater meaning. Chance and necessity interact in the adventure. Simmel argues that life itself can be seen as an adventure; it is an attitude toward life, a “super, life,” where the totality of life is linked to the particular. Adventure, Simmel maintains, consists of various syntheses between “activity and passivity, between what we conquer and what is given to us.”. Life becomes a “conquest” and something into which we have been thrown. Adventure combines certainty and uncertainty, moving forward as if it must succeed, yet knowing that success is not guaranteed. Adventure “intensifies” life, according to Simmel, even as many miss out on it because “much of life is hostile to adventure.”

Adventurized/Spontaneized Routine: routines that enable adventure. Adventure as a balancing act in ABT is a balance between spontaneity and routine. There is spontaneity and adventure in building habits and routines to immerse oneself in adventure as a “form of experience” (Simmel, 1971). “Adventurization” means throwing oneself into a life, an adventure, where things are at stake. This contrasts with the overly routinized lives some people lead, where there is no room for spontaneity; we are cogs in a machine, trapped in an iron cage that has shrunk our lives or dominated by a passivized everyday existence (Lefebvre, 1991). At the same time, however, adventure can be part of everyday life; what is required is that there be routines in which we can discover new things and engage in activities where something is at stake. Adventure is all, consuming and shapes the present, an “over, life,” as Simmel called it.

Routines are central to a meaningful life. They are necessary for ontological security (Giddens), and it is a recurring theme that great achievements, breakthroughs, and creativity arise from the habit of working frequently and continuously, as seen, for example, in the lives of Nietzsche or Darwin. For instance, the routine of entering a state of deep focus is central to creating something new (Newport, 2016). Examples of “spontaneized routines” or “adventurized routines” include those who read, those who start new projects, or those involved in political activities, where a long, term commitment opens the door to adventure and spontaneity. Simmel highlights the artist as an adventurer. Another figure who embraces adventure is the flâneur, of whom Baudelaire in Paris is the quintessential archetype. The city becomes a place of adventure, and social encounters form the foundation of that adventure. Adventure is thus fundamentally social and derives its forms, contours, content, and degree of intensity from the social interactions, practices, and discourses that exist in society. Adventure is linked primarily to risk-taking and citizenship. Adventure involves risks, and the true adventure for the hero is one embedded in the civic struggle to strive for the good life.

Imbalances

Below are various imbalances in this dimension.

Unspontaneous routine, everydayified, over, routinized, bureaucratized, is a state where routine has taken over everyday life. Daily life has become confined to habits that are entirely predictable, and a sense of being in a “Greyhound Day” is ever, present. These can be routines at work on an assembly line or within a bureaucracy involving repetitive tasks. Adventure is completely gone; there is no excitement, hardly any variation, and if there is variation, it is an irritating one consisting of various forms of minor annoyances, such as a car breaking down, arguments over who should clean, and so on. “Everydayification,” according to Lefebvre (2004), is the process of passivization that occurs when one withdraws from a “super, complexity” of society that is perceived as too heavy and difficult to bear. “Everyday, ized” refers to a state of passivity, conformity, and compartmentalization, with a division between the private sphere and work that leaves no time for community, creativity, activity, and citizenship. The simulation of adventure in the media is the companion of everyday life that makes it bearable; we have had a substitute for our own adventure.

Part of this unspontaneous routine is triviality. The trivialization of life, which stems from increased irrationality, can just as easily arise from a fascination with trivial things and phenomena. Our fascination with consumer goods and competitions allows us to fill conversations with enchanting trivialities. We don’t see them as trivialities, because they’re shrouded in a certain allure. You can spend your entire life being fanatical about a product, for example, standing in line for days for a new iPhone release, or waiting in line for a new makeup store opened by a famous influencer. There are various reality shows filled with trivial and clichéd drama that repeats itself without much variation, depth, or complexity. There’s enough variety to keep the easily entertained audience from getting bored. This is possible because their own lives have been filled with trivialities. No great adventures. Life is consumed by trivialities and irrationalities, such as the fact that we spend our lives in the private sphere.

Clichéd Adventures/Routinized Adventures, these are adventures that have become routine, either because they’ve been done by many before, leaving nothing to discover, or because they’re adventures created by a company with a set routine designed to maximize profits. Touristification (Taleb, 2012) is a way of life in which one experiences life as a tourist, rather than as an adventurer or flâneur. One is sheltered within the confines of an all, inclusive resort, participating in various activities that are planned in advance and formalized.

Spontaneous non, routine or impulsive spontaneity occurs when spontaneity takes over and is uncontrolled. When inspiration strikes, a person can devote themselves to their interests or life goals, and sometimes a fleeting interest in politics or some issue may arise only to quickly fade away. Spontaneity is impulse, driven and meaningless, part of the dominance of an app or video game, or commodified as part of digital labor (Fuchs, 2017). Adventure can also be incorporated into a “adventure” created by someone else that you follow, which is predetermined, for example, in the realm of consumption or a video game. Clichéd adventures and risks involve taking illegal substances and/or selfish risks. These are adventures that are hedonistic and privatized; they are not adventures that are part of something larger connected to citizenship or heroism. It is similar to the hyperreal consumerist adventure described by Baudrillard, in which we are guided by a “universalized curiosity,” and everything is precisely planned by large corporations (Baudrillard, 1998).

Another form of excess routine that is closely related to the state of “everyday, ization” is being “stored.Stored” describes a state in which an individual goes through life without experiencing any real transformation or personal development, but is instead constantly kept in a state of passive storage. This is clearly manifested in the school’s role as a custodial institution, where students are shaped to follow rules rather than to flourish (Allelin, 2019). School can be experienced as a prison where one is forced to follow orders and endure a kind of “sentence” for a crime one has never committed. The experience of school as a place of confinement can become self, perpetuating, as the imbalances that arise there can increase the risk of future criminality and further confinement, for example, in an actual prison. Confinement becomes part of the individual’s habitus, where life revolves around navigating various forms of confining structures: school, the workplace, and, in some cases, the home. Confinement also leads to attempts at resistance, but paradoxically, these can reinforce the prison walls. This occurs when individuals who try to break free instead end up in jobs characterized by low status, high exploitation, and high social expectations (Willis, 1970; Dovemark et al., 2015). In some extreme cases, confinement becomes a pattern of life, where school and prison form a continuous chain that blocks the path to a good life, a good education, and other opportunities (Wacquant, 1999). Confinement is not limited to school and prison but can also be linked to the home, as in women’s experiences of being housewives, where confinement becomes part of structural oppression. It can also describe the feeling of being “stuck” in a job, where one is reduced to simply being present from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. just to survive. Ted Kaczynski argued that modern society requires minimal knowledge and instead prioritizes obedience, a central aspect of confinement. Obedience often involves being physically bound to a place at recurring times, which creates a sense of passivity and a lack of control. In some cases, confinement can be internalized, where the individual adapts and begins to perceive confinement as a source of security, a kind of sociological “Stockholm syndrome.” Arlie Hochschild has described this in her research on workplaces, where some people would rather stay at work than spend time with their families. The same theme is evident in the film Wall, E, where an entire society has become a containment structure for people who have lost the ability to control their own lives and instead passively consume entertainment. In extreme cases, containment involves refugee camps and national borders, where individuals are held captive in what Giorgio Agamben describes as “bare life” (1998) and the logic of necropolitics (Mbembe, 2003). Incarceration here becomes a form of exploitation, where structures of cheap labor are built to reduce the costs of a large prison population (Wacquant, 1999). Prison incarceration is particularly problematic because it rarely leads to any real rehabilitation. Society outside the prison is rife with pathologies, and these are intensified within the prison walls. Furthermore, structures such as high educational costs make it difficult for prisoners to break free and build a better future for themselves, since education risks being perceived as a “reward” for criminal behavior. Confinement also evokes a sense of powerlessness, of not being the agent of one’s own life. Modern society, which Ulrich Beck describes as a risk society, transforms people into participants in experiments they have not chosen (1992). The feeling of confinement is intertwined with other social conditions such as alienation, anomie, fatalism, and grim pessimism. Being “contained” is a metaphor for describing an existence in which the individual is held within a constant reproduction of structures, without the possibility of change or development. This concept provides a new framework for understanding the overlapping aspects of social conditions, in which the individual’s life is shaped and constrained by external forces that prioritize control and obedience over freedom and creativity.