Consistency

Chris Williamson says that how long things feel depend on novelty and intensity. To life what feels like a long, meaningful life, as opposed to a life that has slipped through the fingers, you must do novel, intense things.

Yet, what of practice? To learn an instrument, the same activity is done over and over. The same instrument is played each day for years and years. Is there a tradeoff between this novelty, and consistency?

Or, is it possible to have novelty within consistency? To go to the gym each day, but to, instead of doing the same routine every time, perhaps once a week or once a fortnight, do something fitness-related, and still aiming towards the same goal, but nonetheless different and new? To go swimming once instead of a run, or to play some other new sport, or to do a particularly intense workout.