We all find, to some greater or lesser extent, comfort in repetition, in doing the same thing repeatedly, perhaps even in redundancy and repetition? What is repetition, but creating a pattern in chaos. Squirrels come hard-wired to climb trees, copulate, and store nuts. People are nearly entirely “user defined”. One function of culture, of course, is to provide a behavioral template.
But even though the apparently order of repetition–say going to a bar every Saturday and church every Sunday–is illusory, isn’t it? It could be some other way. This is what it feels to me like the Existentialists–none of whom seem to have been very clever–thought an original insight.
I don’t even think you can say that what comforts us, we repeat, unless we define comfort as ANY form of anxiety and confusion release. Quite often what we repeat is bad for us, but it worked once, so we continue. This order is preferable to an unstable peace.