Anyone who knows me will validate my fondness for use of the word Romance. I’m clearly a hopeless romantic at heart and spend many moments in my day savoring experiences that offer no functional benefit simply because I find them spiritually gratifying. I recognize my use of the term diverges from the traditional definition most people attribute to it but I’ve found it an intuitive way to describe my subjective appreciation of an otherwise normal activity.
Perhaps my favorite example of the romance in my daily routine is using my French press to make coffee. Sure, using a Keurig or a drip coffee maker would be more efficient and trouble free, but I don’t care. I take such enjoyment from the grinding of the beans, bringing a kettle up to boil, pouring the steaming water over fresh grounds, and the ceremony of pressing the grounds at the end. Coffee for me is an emotional journey, fuel for my spirit just as much as it fuels my mind and body.
There are many more examples such as the morning routine of listening to my favorite music and watering my plants, going for a drive in my manual transmission car, or grilling on my Weber charcoal grill. These are activities which offer no quantifiable benefit, in fact many are objectively worse less efficient methods of achieving an outcome. Money and time spent on plants surely offers no material benefit, my manual transmission car is clearly a less efficient more crude method of transportation, my charcoal grill can prove challenging to manage even after using it for 15 years.
The simplest way that I’ve found describe why I do these types of things is that there is some unquantifiable romance in the activity. Whether a flaw or feature of my character, I’ve fallen in love with these experiences which require skilled attention and add novelty to an otherwise mundane existence. As I consider the traditional understanding of romance, surely it represents a subjective experience which takes the mundane and turns it sublime.
Like love itself, I find romance to be a feature of humanity which endlessly enriches my existence. It cannot be bought or taken away, it is within each of us and you need only pause for a moment through your day to recognize it. I encourage you to reflect on those eccentricities you practice, the novelties which make little rational sense but you take enjoyment from. Cherish them, protect them, use them in your times of need to nurture your soul.
And to acknowledge the obvious, if you are fortunate enough to find another soul who shares similar fondness for those novel activities, who’s notion of romance matches up to your own, the spiritual fulfillment might be magnified exponentially. Little doses of romance through the day can help sustain us through the burdens of responsibility, but a grand romance with another spirit can set our souls on fire.
So do not sleep on the promise of romances both small and grand, seek them within your days, pursue them through your life, and when your spirit aligns with another, may the universe smolder from the flame of your passion. But it will not blossom casually, it requires intentional pursuit, you must meditate on it, must nurture it. The reward for your effort might be modest at a small scale, but it might just come to define the course of your life on a grand scale.
