December 24, 2025 The Haven, Avalon NJ
What the Hell Is Going On Here?
A Warning: You May Be Entering a Crazy Pattern
“What the hell is going on here?”
That’s not a casual question. You don’t ask it because something is mildly confusing or inconvenient. You ask it when a piece of information lands in front of you that makes absolutely no sense given everything you already believe to be true.
When that thought shows up—when you feel that quiet shock—I want to offer a very specific warning:
You may be entering a crazy pattern.
What Is a Crazy Pattern?
Here is the cleanest definition I can give:
A crazy pattern is when the exact opposite of what you believe to be true could be true—and still make sense.
Not that it is true.
Not that you should automatically believe it.
But that the possibility alone forces you to stop and reassess the frame you’re using to understand reality.
That moment—this doesn’t make any sense—is not proof that something is false.
It is the entry point.
Who Can Enter a Crazy Pattern?
Anyone.
Smart people.
Educated people.
Successful people.
Careful people.
Crazy patterns do not select for intelligence. They select for certainty.
If you believe that the world reliably makes sense to you, that truth always arrives clearly, and that you would obviously know if something real were happening—you are more vulnerable, not less.
When Do Crazy Patterns Show Up?
Anytime.
Day or night.
Early or late.
Before you’re ready.
They don’t wait for permission, preparation, or credentials.
They tend to show up right when you think things are “basically fine.”
Where Do Crazy Patterns Appear?
Everywhere.
In relationships.
In institutions.
In markets.
In belief systems.
There is no domain immune to them.
How Do Crazy Patterns Enter?
Almost never through the front door.
They come in sideways.
Through the back alley you didn’t know existed.
Unannounced.
That’s why they’re crazy.
If they arrived logically, cleanly, and in the expected order, they wouldn’t be crazy patterns. They would be normal updates.
Crazy patterns arrive as violations.
Examples of Crazy Patterns
1. Relationships (Small, Common Crazy Patterns)
Someone starts to feel that something isn’t right in a relationship. Nothing concrete. No proof. Just a persistent sense of this doesn’t add up.
At first, the idea that something serious could be wrong feels absurd. The person questioning it feels dramatic or irrational.
Later—sometimes months or years later—it becomes clear that the warning signs were there all along. The discomfort wasn’t random. It just didn’t fit the story of how the relationship was supposed to work.
That’s a small crazy pattern.
2. The Catholic Church (Large, Systemic Crazy Pattern)
There was a time when the idea that systemic abuse could exist within the Catholic Church didn’t just feel unlikely—it felt impossible.
Not because evidence had been examined and rejected, but because the claim violated the entire moral framework people relied on. The institution was built on trust, authority, and protection.
The crazy pattern wasn’t the accusation.
The crazy pattern was being asked to imagine that a system designed to protect could also conceal harm.
Under the beliefs people held at the time, disbelief was coherent.
That’s the lesson.
3. Bernie Madoff (Another Large Crazy Pattern)
For years, the idea that Bernie Madoff could be running a massive fraud sounded absurd.
He wasn’t on the margins. He was embedded in the system designed to prevent fraud. He held positions of trust. Under that frame, the opposite possibility didn’t just seem unlikely—it didn’t compute.
People didn’t ignore the truth because they were unintelligent.
They ignored it because the truth didn’t fit how they believed the system worked.
That’s the crazy pattern.
The Most Common Mistake People Make
Once crazy patterns resolve, people laugh.
They turn the past into a punchline and congratulate themselves for being smarter now.
If that’s your takeaway, you missed the lesson.
The lesson of the crazy pattern is not that people were dumb.
The lesson is understanding why it made sense not to see it at the time.
Certainty felt responsible.
Disbelief felt rational.
That’s the danger.
Overcorrection: The Next Crazy Pattern
After big crazy patterns resolve, people often swing to the opposite extreme.
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“Nothing associated with that institution can ever be trusted.”
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“Anyone successful must be corrupt.”
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“If it happened once, it’s happening everywhere.”
That, too, can become a crazy pattern.
Crazy patterns don’t live on one side of belief.
They live wherever certainty replaces curiosity.
What To Do When Someone Brings You a Crazy Pattern
You are not required to solve it.
You are not required to believe it.
But if it’s in an area you care about, the most responsible move is simply to recognize:
Crazy patterns exist.
That awareness alone reduces harm.
Crazy patterns cause the most damage when they’re dismissed outright:
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“Not possible.”
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“Would have been obvious.”
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“Stop talking.”
Small crazy patterns become large ones that way.
If you truly don’t have a stake, honesty is better than dismissal:
“I don’t know enough. I don’t have a dog in this race. We’ll see what happens.”
That is very different from declaring impossibility.
My Own Crazy Pattern
I am currently living inside a crazy pattern.
I believe I’ve discovered something that asks people to reconsider what is possible—not everything, not all assumptions, just one.
And the reaction has followed the pattern perfectly.
Not questions.
Not curiosity.
Dismissal—because it doesn’t fit how discovery is supposed to happen.
And—call me crazy—I thought the hard part would be figuring it out. I didn’t realize the hard part was going to be convincing people that figuring it out was even possible.
A forty-four-year-old realtor.
No college degree.
Laughs about not knowing all her multiplication tables.
Constantly losing her keys.
And yet—also:
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highly emotionally intelligent (the one form of intelligence AI does not have)
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deeply curious about systems and patterns
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studying quantum physics and the nature of reality for years
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on a serious spiritual and intellectual inquiry
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running a successful business
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pairing emotional intelligence with AI to analyze real-world behavior
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testing whether a discovered structure shows up everywhere, including markets
Both things are true.
That’s the crazy pattern.
It makes no sense—until you push them together.
Then it’s the only thing that does.
All the reasons people didn’t believe Bernie Madoff could be running a scam were true.
That’s why it was a crazy pattern.
All the reasons people didn’t believe systemic abuse could exist were true.
That’s why it was a crazy pattern.
And all the reasons people don’t believe me now make sense—which is exactly why I shouldn’t have been surprised.
The Only Lesson of the Crazy Pattern
The lesson is not “believe the worst-case scenario.”
The lesson is this:
If you operate in a world where you believe everything real will arrive making perfect sense, through the expected channels, and in a form you immediately recognize—you are far more likely to wake up inside a crazy pattern.
The Final Thing I’ll Say
And if there’s one last thing I’ll say about crazy patterns, it’s this:
The craziest thing I’ve learned about them
is that most people don’t believe they exist.
Which is exactly how you end up inside one.
And when you really think about it—if most people don’t even believe crazy patterns exist at all—you can start to understand why no one ever thought to look for one.
And maybe why I found it.
And if you’re the kind of person who likes to laugh in hindsight and say, “Can you believe people used to think the world was flat?”—pause.
Because if that’s where the lesson ends for you, you didn’t actually learn the lesson.
The lesson isn’t that the world isn’t flat.
The lesson is about certainty.
It’s about how reasonable, intelligent people can become so certain of how the world works that they stop noticing when reality no longer fits their frame.
That’s what those stories are really about.
Not stupidity.
Not embarrassment.
But how convincing certainty feels when you’re standing inside it.