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Seeing patterns in others is easier than seeing them in oneself

 It is easy to see when someone else is behaving in a way that is irrational or detrimental to their own well being. But when the same applies to oneself it is very difficult to realize that you are behaving or following similar irrational/ unhealthy patterns. why is that so?

I think it is because when someone else is doing it e.g. ending up in a relationship with a person they know is not good for them, we can observe that fact without getting involved. So all our faculties are impartial in the sense that all the computing power can be used for analysis purposes. And we can see the pattern in that person, and the fact that he/she is again repeating it.

But when it comes to oneself, the same faculties are actually busy enacting the pattern and some of these faculties are shut down by the pattern itself (the pattern is again just a set of ideas that get executed). So, one of the key features of this pattern is that it shuts down the ideas that can actually recognize it. A good analogy would be if a thief knows the house he intends to rob well, he knows where the security cameras are. He will first shut down or disable the security cameras and then rob the place. In a similar way, a key feature of some of these patterns is that they shut down the program/idea in the brain that can analyze the pattern and recognize it (i.e. it shuts down the security cameras of the brain). And then we are powerless over the pattern and repeat it.

But that is not written in stone. After the fact we recognize this, we can come up with better safeguards to protect us from the pattern when it is activated again e.g. ask our friends to use their mental security cameras to warn us. Or work on ourselves through therapy etc. to try to dismantle the pattern (easier when it is not activated). Or install more security cameras which the pattern is not aware of yet. 


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