GUEST SPEAKER PRESCRIPTION H

Can You Become A Creature of New Habits? This is the question that has been tearing up the NYTimes' most-emailed list for the past week (after holding on to the top spot for a couple of days it is now at #16 -- clearly many businessmen and your roomates' mothers think that you need new habits.) Here are some quick facts:

• The article is about 1,000 words long.
  
• The first word in the article is "HABITS."
  
• The article is written by Janet Rae-Dupree.
  
• Janet Rae-Dupree writes about science and emerging technology in Silicon Valley.
  
• This article appears in the Business column "UNBOXED."
  
• The name "UNBOXED" is clearly biased against habits (and boxes) and the habit-practicing community.
  

Now that we are on our way, let me introduce myself. I am PRESCRIPTION H, and I am a big fan of habits. I read this article last week on my laptop (as is my wont) thinking that it would be a great source of new and exciting habits and places to find them. Instead, it's really about learning new THINGS, not new habits. This is different, you see. And, more alarmingly, it encourages readers of the Grey Lady to discard their old habits! I know, very disappointing. Feel free to read it, if you want, but be warned: it is filled with businessy new-age mumbo jumbo about what type of "learner" you are and how to lose weight by listening to a new radio station.

After you are finished reading it, or right now, check out some of these especially recommended habits:

• Coffee drinking
  
• Fingernail chewing
  
• Electrons orbiting a nucleus
  
• Punctuation
  
• Gravity
  
• Hats
  
• Chirping
  
• Saving change
  
• Thinking about your habits
  
• Magazine subscriptions
  

Note that the last habit is potentially a DOUBLE HABIT, in that (1) your magazine will habitually arrive in set periods of time and then (2) you will read it as part of your habit of reading magazines at coffee shops while chewing your fingernails. There is not time or space to discuss the certainly mind-blowing potentials of DOUBLE HABITS now, so we will shelve it for a later date (as is our wont, starting now).

So try out some of these new habits, or at least think about them. Who knows, you may already be habitually using punctuation or corresponding to the law of gravity! But don't discard any old habits; merely add these to your library. Your habits, dear reader, are beautiful, and they are what make YOU beautiful.

habitus et unum,

PRESCRIPTION H