shared experience: Ritual or Habit?

I am fascinated by the little everyday rituals that we perform and participate in often unconsciously, like the kiss goodbye to the loved one, or the daily latte, or the order of our morning or bedtime activities. One ritual that helps us relate to our culture and some class aspects of our white middle class society is the morning latte, or coffee shop experience. One waits in line, makes the monumental decision of which pastry to eat, and what kind of heated beverage to wash it down with, then obediently pays their fee, and finally relinquishes the witty banter of the barista to the next person and moves to the opposite counter to await their piece of this dogmatic culture. Once the beverage is placed before us, we may sit at a cafe table and checks our email, or read the news like half the rest of the clientele. Not everyone can indulge this type of daily or even weekly ritual, but the idea and understanding of it is assumed, expected and extremely prevalent in Northwestern and urban societies. Shared experiences like this one and others are important for a sense of belonging in any group of people. Fitting into a new group, job, church, or social structure depends on the ability to find and discuss shared experiences with others of the same group.

Out with my roommate on one of our routine internet access searches for job hunting and solidifying holiday travel plans, I watched as she created the shared experience she had described to me when we went to a local coffee shop to use the internet. Times are hard and with each of us struggling to find enough work to pay our share of the rent, internet is a luxury we just cannot afford, it hits somewhere out past the power bill, laundry and groceries. We frequent a busy cafe attached to a book store, so its not as obvious or annoying to the cafe workers that we never purchase anything, but the smells of the food and coffee are nerve wracking when ones belt is tightened. I watched over my lap top while she sat in her very nice looking clothing, expensive earrings and every hair in place, sipping coffee from a paper cup that she had picked up from the bank across the street, and eating a danish from home. We had picked the danish up from the local food bank the day before, but when she got to her mall job later in the day, she would be able to describe her “shared experience” of the coffee shop lifestyle to her coworkers, and they would never suspect that she would be lucky to pull in and live on a mere $800 dollars this year. This recession that supposedly isn't one has fostered a lot of desperation borne creativity in people that is manifesting in different ways. If tattoos are a poor mans way to have and own artwork, as well as being a rite of passage for certain populations and cultures, then creative ways of social climbing are rituals and ceremonial gestures of their own. If only to maintain a common ground of conversation to fit in better with ones coworkers, and maintain a five hour a week job in an economy where every part time job expects bachelors degrees, open availability and priority over any other job, and only pays minimum wage.