Monotonizing existence

Wise is the man who monotonizes his existence ... Monotonizing existence, so that it won’t be monotonous. Pessoa
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The normal person, as I remarked above, does not practise awareness where he does not find it necessary, that is to say, in his habitual actions; but the bhikkhu is instructed not only to do these habitual actions with awareness but also, as far as possible, to confine himself to these actions. Drive and initiative in new ventures, so highly prized in the world of business and practical affairs, are impediments for one who is seeking release. Nanavira Thera
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The common view is that the remedy for boredom is variety or distraction, but this only aggravates the malady. The real remedy is repetition.

Here is Kierkegaard:

Whoever fails to understand that life is repetition, and that this is its beauty, has passed judgement upon himself; he deserves no better fate than that which will befall him, namely to be lost. Hope is an alluring fruit which does not satisfy, memory is a miserable pittance that does not satisfy, but repetition is life’s daily bread, which satisfies and blesses. When a man has circumnavigated the globe it will appear whether he has the courage to understand that life is repetition, and the enthusiasm to find therein his happi-ness…. In repetition inheres the earnestness and reality of life.
Whoever wills repetition proves himself to be in possession of a pathos that is serious and mature.

Concluding Unscientific Postscript
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Give me monotony – the dull repetition of the same old days, today an exact copy of yesterday – while my observant soul enjoys the fly that flits past my eyes and distracts me, the laughter that drifts up from I’m not sure which street, the liberation I feel when it’s time to close the office, and the infinite repose of a day off. Pessoa
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Zibaldone references:

Distraction is one of the means by which man avoids the recognition that “life in itself is an evil” (Z 4043). On drowsiness and drunkenness see Z 172 and notes. A possible trace of the influence of Pascal on this theme on Z 649. See also Z 1678, 4074–75, and, especially, 4187.
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Accordingly, the greatest possible simplicity of our circumstances and even the monotony of our way of life, as long as it does not produce boredom, will make us happy. For they make us least feel life itself, and consequently the burden essentially connected with it; it flows by like a brook, without waves and vortices.
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As is well known, evils are alleviated by bearing them collectively. Among these, people apparently count boredom, so they sit together in order to be bored together. Just as the love of life is at bottom only the fear of death, similarly the drive to sociability in humans is really not a direct one, since it is not based on the love of society, but on the fear of loneliness, in that it is not so much the charming presence of others that is sought, but rather the dreariness and anxiety of being alone, together with the monotony of one’s own consciousness, that are to be escaped. In order to avoid these, people put up even with bad company and the annoyance and the constraint it necessarily brings with it. ‒ On the other hand, if the revulsion against all this has won and if, as a result, a habit of solitude and the inurement against its immediate impact have arisen, so that it no longer produces the above-described effects, then we can continue to be alone with the greatest ease without longing for society, exactly because the need for it is not a direct one and, on the other hand, we are now accustomed to the beneficial qualities of solitude.
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On a cold winter’s day a community of porcupines huddled very close together to protect themselves from freezing through their mutual warmth. However, they soon felt one another’s quills, which then forced them apart. Now when the need for warmth brought them closer together again, that second drawback repeated itself so that they were tossed back and forth between both kinds of suffering until they discovered a moderate distance from one another, at which they could best endure the situation. – This is how the need for society, arising from the emptiness and monotony of our own inner selves, drives people together; but their numerous repulsive qualities and unbearable flaws push them apart once again. The middle distance they finally discover and at which a coexistence is possible is courtesy and good manners. In England, anyone who does not stay at this distance is told: ‘Keep your distance!’– Of course by means of this the need for mutual warmth is only partially satisfied, but in exchange the prick of the quills is not felt. – Yet whoever has a lot of his own inner warmth prefers to stay away from society in order neither to cause trouble nor to receive it.
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For what somebody is in himself, what accompanies him in solitude, and what nobody can give him or take away from him, is obviously more essential to him than anything that he possesses or that he may be in the eyes of others. A witty person, all alone, has excellent entertainment in his own thoughts and fantasies, whereas in a dullard the continuous diversion of parties, plays, excursions, and amusements cannot fend off the torments of boredom. A good, moderate, gentle character can be contented in meagre circumstances, whereas a greedy, envious, and malicious one is not in spite of all his wealth. Indeed, for the person who continuously enjoys an extraordinary, intellectually eminent personality, most of the generally desired pleasures are entirely superfluous, even just troublesome and annoying. Hence Horace says of himself:

Gems, marble, ivory,
Etruscan figurines, pictures,
Silver, clothes dyed in Gaetulian purple,
Many there are who own none, one who does not care to own.

And Socrates, when looking at luxury articles displayed for sale, says: ‘How many things there are I do not need.’
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The emptiness of their inner life, the dullness of their consciousness, the poverty of their mind make them seek company, which, however, consists of people just like them, because ‘like takes pleasure in like’.  So together they hunt for diversion and entertainment, which they initially seek in sensuous pleasures, in every kind of amusement, and finally in excesses. The source of the fatal extravagance with which many a son of a family entering life with riches squanders his large inheritance within an incredibly short period of time, is really nothing but the boredom that has its source in the poverty and emptiness of mind just described. Such a young man was sent into the world outwardly rich, but inwardly poor, and now tried in vain to supplant inner with external wealth by wanting to receive everything from outside – like old men who seek to strengthen themselves through the perspiration of young women. And so in the end, inner poverty also led to external poverty.

Schopenhauer
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"Every diversion is an anticipation of hell". Well said, Jose Bergamin, but terrible! These words were not spoken by a fanatical fifteenth-century preacher but by brilliant contemporary writer. The infernal substance of diversion consist, I believe, in its literal meaning: to take another way.
Ceronetti