Alain De Botton On Habit Analysis

Alain de Botton in his essay “On Habit,” presents the concept of a traveling mindset. A traveling mindset means seeing every day plaices like a great opportunity for adventure. De Botton argues that by paying attention to de details around, people can fight against the boredom of their routine. Also habituation can be reverse by developing a traveling mindset because it helps discovering how things really look and work. De Botton does not go into how this can affect science but it can be related to the author Lauren Slater’s essay “Who Holds the Clicker?”. On her essay Slater explores the subject of mind control though stimulation of the brain by presenting examples of surgical procedures and how they were conducted. She explains some cases
Explaining what it means to have a traveling mindset de Botton expresses, “What, then, is a travelling mindset? Receptivity might be said to be its chief characteristic. … We risk getting run over because we are intrigued by the roof of a government building or the inscription on a wall. We are alive to the layers of history beneath the present and take notes and photographs” (62). People with a traveling mind need receptivity meaning that in order to enjoy what is around them people have to be open to new experiences and information. Beside receptivity people also have to take the risk of breaking the routine and take notice of how things came to be what they are on the present. Stopping to check the small details sometimes represent a risk but often it pays out by teaching important details like what it says on a wall or the design of a governmental building. Scientists can benefit from the same qualities than a person with a traveling mindset because they need to go beyond the obvious. An example of how science require taking risk and absorbing the information is when Slater