(Essay 2/30) Mindful repetition, compounds.

This is day-2 of my 30 day atomic essay streak.

Ironically, this simple act of keeping a count ties back to something more fundamental.

I call it 'mindful repetition'.

If you google it, high chances you'll land some esoteric definition of 'mindful repetition' - closer to meditation & learning.

However, that's a very limited view.

Instead mindful repetition merits an expanded definition.

Mindful repetition is periodic recurrence of a simple event that moves a system towards stability.

Think of an event happening again & again in a predictable order.
It reduces chaos & allows complex systems to be built on top of simpler ones.

It's a mouthful. I know.
Stay with me.

Let's go back to our example of counting.

Numbers are a mindful repetition of discrete elements in a predictable order.
E.g. In decimal system, all numbers are certain repetitions of unity.
2 = (1,1)
3 = (1,1,1)

This repetition builds mathematics.

Similarly,
Respiration is mindful repetition of inhalation & exhalation.
Builds complex organisms. Builds meditation.

Harmonic motion is mindful repetition of motion at a certain frequency.
Builds complex acoustic & physical systems.

Four fundamental forces are a mindful repetition of waves (EM waves, gravitation waves etc).
They can be expressed as wave functions.
Build astronomical as well as quantum systems.

Mindful repetition is omnipresent.
It is the mechanism -
how nature builds stable systems whose complexity compound with time.

So -
to build something that sustains and compounds, over-index on repetition.

Want to write better, write something everyday.
Want to be calmer, meditate everyday.
Want to complete a project, ship something everyday.

For me, mindful repetition is a forcing function to build systems.
Reading systems, writing systems, deployment systems... the list goes on.

Systems scale better than tactics.

What's next ?
Tomorrow I plan to write about my 'daily life systems'.