I recently exchanged messages with a guy who coaches college football, who said that August is his favorite time of the year: getting the squad ready for the playing season.

I got to thinking about that. It has a characteristic of many experiences that we enjoy: the same, yet not the same. Think of a musical note. Played twice, it’s just the same. Played once and then the octave: same and yet not the same.

So each August, I would imagine, it’s much the same: checking out equipment, getting to know new players, running drills, and so on. Yet it’s not the same: some new guys, some guys have left, different problems, and so on. It’s a niche version of the “back-to-school” experience that we all have had—and, I think, enjoyed (in later years).

Rituals have this character: the same each time, yet different. Even the shaving ritual has some of it, but it happens too frequently to build up resonance, which seems to require some time between repetitions.

I’m thinking of Thanksgiving dinner, for example. Once a year, so that the last occurrence is well in the past. Yet in the repetition, one recalls those past dinners: a kind of time-travel resonance in the ritual, brought about by having many of the same people, many of the same dishes, and many of the same rituals (each person saying something they are thankful for in the past year, for example, or a traditional walk, or watching a game, or whatever).

The resonance is amplified, I think, if each occurrence brings back some unique markers: a special dish (orange-almond-cranberry sauce), special dishes (the Thanksgiving turkey platter),  a special tablecloth and napkins, special decorations brought out each year.

This, come to think of it, is why so many people like to decorate for holidays, especially Christmas: all the old decorations, table settings and set-up, treats (Lizzies, for example) along with the new tree (but still a tree), the new friends, new presents (but still presents), and so on. The number of special once-a-year decorations give a larger and stronger foundation, as it were, for the resonance. (This insight is helpful to me, who never liked decorations because I didn’t understand the idea. Put them all up and then take them all down? Why not just skip them? Now I understand—and I think most people understand immediately, at some level. Perhaps they just immediately tune in to the resonance.)

Where does this come from, this appreciation of repetitions that are the same yet different? Perhaps it’s very basic, from evolving on a world with seasons that repeat each year—for example, every year a winter: the same, yet different. Each autumn: the same, yet with its own differences.

To return to music: we do like to hear old pieces again—either the same performance (recorded) or a variation (a different artist, a different orchestra in a different concert hall). And even in the short run, music seems to exploit repetitions: the repeating chorus, the repeated theme, with variations.