Routines are worn-in ways, roads; rituals are sacred ones.

Level of comment-box discourse provoked by the Chicago teacher's union strike:

'Too bad, so sad'

'I can help you with that! My view is…'

'Crusoe / We say was / "Rescued".'

'The sun shines to-day also.'

'Convince me that you have a seed there…'

Emerson, 'Self-Reliance': 'Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state…'

In Walden ii, 1-6, Thoreau makes his attitude toward settlement, toward settling, clear: 'I would say to my fellows, once for all, As long as possible live free and uncommitted' (ii, 5).

ii, 8: 'When first I took up my abode in the woods…'

Abode, per OED, 'apparently an alteration of BODE n by association with ABIDE v'; bode, 'biding, tarrying, waiting, delay; but bode: without delay'; abide runs through senses involving waiting, expecting, remaining ready, staying, remaining, residing, dwelling, staying habitually in a place, continuing, persisting.

ii, 1: 'The future inhabitants of this region, wherever they may place their houses, may be sure that they have been anticipated'.

A teacher who feels called to a vocation will feel all the more unhappy at inviting any student freely to leave what education is to be had rather than take it; like a priest who says, sorry, my child, if you can be saved, it's not by me.