I totally agree about routine. Routine is the infrastructure of our lives. Our society more or less works when the infrastructure of plumbing, hydro, law, emergency rescue, education, transportation, health care, food supply, and so on are all in place. In a war, the first thing to go is the organized infrastructure. I think sadly about the siege of Sarajevo, Iraq, New Orleans during Katrina, and on and on. Routine keeps our personal infrastructures in place to allow more spontaneity and creativity everywhere else. Lots of questions come to mind: Who maintains the infrastructure in your lives? How fragile is it? What can you do to prop it up? Nice to be chatting again tng. As the theme of this thread suggests, your response has sparked my creativity around the topic of "creativity and routines."