The More a Pattern Has Shaped Your Life, the Less Likely You Are to Have Ever Named It
There's a counterintuitive relationship between how much a pattern has shaped someone's life and how likely they are to have ever explicitly named it: the biggest, longest-running patterns are frequently the least named, not the most, because naming requires a kind of distance that a deeply embedded pattern actively works against.
A pattern that only shows up occasionally is easier to notice as a distinct thing, precisely because it contrasts with a baseline. A pattern that has run continuously, shaping nearly every relevant decision for years, doesn't contrast with anything — it is the baseline, which makes it close to invisible as a discrete, nameable object.
This is why the patterns people most need to name are often the ones they've never once put into words, while smaller, more occasional patterns get identified and discussed readily. Scale and visibility run in opposite directions here.
Naming the biggest pattern usually requires an outside vantage point specifically because the person living inside it has no baseline to compare it against — the pattern has been the water they've been swimming in the whole time.
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Momar Lissa Ndiaye ("MLN") is the Founder & CEO of weyoga Inc., a Delaware company. — weyoga.ai · mln@weyoga.ai