The Drive To Innovate

For better and worse, I'm the sort of person who feels the need to try something new even when the situation seems to call for mindless repetition of the same old formula. Take the cleaning of the kitchen floor, which I just finished. No matter how many times I complete this task, which I typically undertake every other week, I always seem to give it a new twist. Today I used a much wetter mop than I usually do, in part because I was trying to ward off the Definition of Trouble, also known as our kitten Punkabella, who is prone to attack anything that moves. But my decision took shape in a less practical impulse. I wanted to break with convention, even if what passes for convention in this case is merely the distillate of my own precedent. While such tinkering keeps my mind focused on the job, it also leaves me with a feeling of unease. Why can't I just mechanically reproduce the approach that works best?

In the Flat Field