Today I want to talk about patterns. This weekend I had an interesting thing happen to me. I drove up and back to Portland from San Francisco. This is a drive I've done a few times, maybe as many as 5 or 6. I did the drive by myself and was largely trying to do it as fast as reasonably possible. Along the way, I of course had to stop for gas, pee breaks and food. And several times during the trip, I had the weirdest thing happen: I will pull over, for example to get gas, only to realize that I was stopping at the exact same gas station I had stopped at last time. The first time this happened, I thought it was an interesting coincidence. But it kept happening. With absolutely no planning or forethought, I kept stopping at the exact same places - to eat, to get gas, to use a rest stop. I assure you I was not attempting to do this or even thinking about where I had been last time. In fact, if you were to ask me, consciously, to tell you where I stopped, I wouldn't be able to tell you. None of the places I stopped was particularly great or notable or interesting. I just happened to stop at the exact same places.
And it got me thinking about patterns. Patterns in our lives. Things we do without even thinking about it. Somewhere, in the back of our brain stem, a chunk of our brain is busy keeping us warm, safe, and well fed, and that chunk of brain has little or no imagination. It isn't interested in moving us forward or in thinking new thoughts; it's interested in not perishinig from the earth (and, possibly, in reproduction).
So, OK: we do things repeatedly, unconsciously, and in patterns. (Or at least I do). What does this mean? I guess for me, it means that it would be interesting just to pay more attention. I also think that it's an interesting reason why I need to move to Portland. Many people have asked why I'm moving, and sometimes I didn't have the best answer. The main reason is because I feel like I need a new environment, filled with the kinds of things and people I want to be part of my life. And I guess this weekend shows why. I want the part of my brain that makes easy choices to decide to go hiking instead of sit inside, to make friends instead of shrink, to go climbing, hiking and biking. I want that to be *easy*, not hard, so that I'll do it. And I also just want to break patterns; hard-earned patterns of San Francisco that I've worn in after 8 years.