I am tempted to write, repetition is the greatest luxury.
To imagine pure repetition, the prospect, for instance, that a “for loop” offers in computer programming, is to render time in the image of space; as though time could be stopped not through stopping as such, but through the very mechanics of its unfolding – as an endless flow of the same. The iterative loop is both structured by time and structures time. It enables time and holds it at bay. And it is this combined forestalling of time and basking within it that is luxurious.
The same thing occurs in walking. The repetition involved in each step (never absolute) wards off the spirits of the last step, while also inevitably bringing that last step closer. Halfway through a walk is a paradise. It is impossible to imagine that it can end. Then, of course, it does. The experience of luxury always contains a dimension of illusion – more specifically, in this case, the paradoxical confluence of an experience of temporal immersion and temporal suspension.
[Worth indicating that my interest is in regimes of self-imposed repetition. There is no luxury in compulsory repetition (forced labour). The luxury, for instance, of repetitive craft activities relies precisely upon a sense of holistic satisfaction – a lack of external constraint. Sweatshop labour is another thing altogether.]