He realized that once he had fathomed a set pattern it was all a question of application, but if he became fixated on the pattern it was impossible to do anything new. In some ways this resembled his work. He had come to learn that people’s actions were to a certain degree fixed patterns, a template for reading the train of their emotions, but he could not allow a pattern to solidify into assumption or prejudice, as that would prevent him from seeing anything else.
