What begins loose falls into patterns
Because people are essentially lazy
So they develop patterns/rituals to do the most with the least amount of energy
They develop the easy efficient ways, which become their rituals, their techniques, their patterns
What was once chaotic and haphazard has been systematized and has become a formality

Formalities continue until they are rigid, and exist on strength of memory as tradition
Which is to say, the movement of an inertia
Like the train, once it has gathered speed, will not stop quickly.
It is pushed along by the weight behind it, until it is overcome by the subtle forces of friction,.
The weight of memory pushes along a tradition, yet once the efficiency that was offered is lost,
The pattern in useless and breaks; the ritual is over, the tradition dies, the inertia has been worn out by the new force of inefficiency, its friction.

A new looseness comes about and the cycle begins again.

This is in our languages, in the ways we share our thoughts,
In speech, writing and dress, in music and art and design.
The formalities of the 18th Century to that of the 19th and to that of the 20th.
The formalities break and common-ness takes over for a while, until the common becomes the new formality. Latin’s dominance gave way to the Vulgar. The pamphleteers of the 18th Century didn’t write in the scholastic language. The bloggers of the 21st Century are not writing in the formal way of academia and corporate press-releases.

But already, new blogger conventions are developing which will one day give way to a rebellion of the common, a new looseness to revive and remake that old order.