You don't need to think about breathing to breathe. You don't need to think or verbalize the sequence of your heartbeat for your heart to be beating. All of this is already taken care of. You can, of course, become aware of your breathing, and control and modify it, but the same doesn't apply to your heart, you can't consciously decide your heartbeat with precission. Yes, you can excercise and get your rate up, or slow down movement and get it down but you can't just think about what you want for your heartbeat and then it will change. That doesn't work
There are many aspects of life that do not require your awareness. And, much like breathing, if you don't become aware of these processes, you'll keep repeating some learnt patterns. Let's call these unconscious patterns. These unconscious patterns do not care if they're good or bad for you, because they just are. The distinction between good and bad is an added label learnt from a given context, what's good and socially acceptable in some cultures is despicable in another one.
The practice of journaling (and reading my journal entries after some time has passed) has helped me see how I keep repeating some behaviors without being aware of it until I go back to my notes and realize: Oh look! I did the same (stupid) thing two years ago. This led me to think that without constant reflection and being present, I can turn into a kind of automaton, doing the same thing over and over without stopping to think: Is this what I want out of life?
Everything you see in the world is quite mechanical: the Earth orbiting the sun year after year; the seasons, where spring is followed by summer, then fall, then winter, and then spring returns. A tree grows, blossoms during the spring, its leaves change during the fall, and it stands bare during the winter, only to slowly blossom again in the spring. Some trees do this for years, some for decades, and others even for centuries.
Why would human 'nature' be any different? Animals are not rooted to the Earth in the same way that trees are. But there's a high dependency in their behavior on their immediate natural context—consider bird migrations, mating seasons, and hibernation periods. Why, then, would human 'nature' be any different?
Scientists see patterns in the species they study because they dedicate time to observing them. How much time have you dedicated to studying your own behavior? Why would you (or me) be any different?
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