The Feature

Ablative, Allative, Adessive, Obsessive

for The New York Times

Sometimes we turn to ritual to find peace in the solemnity of routine, in the comfort of regular practice. But occasionally we turn to ritual for another reason: because our favorite activities are just too embarrassing to do in public. My obsession, reading textbooks on foreign languages and memorizing obscure grammatical detail, is ritual of the latter persuasion. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if I did it in public, I wouldn’t have any friends.