Essay 20 - Patterns

Patterns are also extremely important in making sense out of everything. Granted they can be overdone as was the case with Prof. Nash in the movie A Beautiful Mind; or by conspiracy theorists; or even people who are mildly paranoid. But failing to use patterns can be a problem too. Suppose you do not set your alarm clock early enough.  You do not have enough time to get ready for work. You missed the bus; and you keep getting fired. If you do not see that pattern, it would be difficult to solve the problem of getting fired. There are endless other patterns, often much simpler, that we see every day. If I eat too close to bedtime I do not sleep well. If I drink too much, I wake up feeling headachy and lethargic. Gee, I wonder if there is a pattern there.

Patterns are important because they allow us to connect actions to consequences which in turn allows us to predict the future. But more importantly, in the cultivation of meaning, patterns help us to make sense out of the world and in doing so help us to make sense out of our lives when we organize our experiences into patterns. Some standard patterns that people use to organize their experiences in life include things like “life is a journey”; or “life is about overcoming obstacles”; or “two steps forward one step back”; or “life is hard, so get used to it”. Far more subtle patterns exist but these are patterns of which most people are unaware.

Patterns are a lot like archetypes. In fact, all archetypes are patterns but not all patterns are archetypes. Why this is so, probably does not matter. We can leave it off by saying that patterns, like archetypes, help us organize and make sense out of our experiences. And anything that helps us to make sense out of our experiences helps us to construct meaning in our lives.

This essay is 330 words long and the audio is a little over 2 1/2 minutes.