Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds

I believe the actual quote begins "a foolish consistency..." but it seems petty to let facts get in the way of a narrative.

Ah consistency. Good old reliable consistency, how I do cherish thee. That redoubtable certainty that what is, is, and shall continue to be, today, tomorrow and all the tomorrow's after that. What a wonderful thing it is. Well, until I get bored of it anyway. Which to be honest doesn't take very long. I'm fickle.

But yet I still cling to the idea that I display a degree of consistency, particularly about work matters, where, when it comes to coding at least, I wear the hat of the consistency police, trying to make sure that everyone codes to the same script. I sometimes find myself clinging to the idea of my own consistency, harbouring the illusion that if I were to approach a task twice over, I'd go through a very close approximation of the same steps I'd used before. This doesn't appear to be true however. My current assignment saw me develop a segment of code on Friday, and then on Monday I wrote something else to do almost exactly the same thing. I learned two things from this: firstly that I didn't realised I'd done the same thing twice, and secondly that I don't think I could have gone about it more differently if I'd tried.

There is an explanation - in both cases I'd approached two distinct problems, which were seemingly unrelated but which both threaded in the same direction and ultimately required the same task to be performed. The strange thing is that I didn't make the connection until I was done and was checking over something else at which point a metaphorical lightbulb popped into existence over my head, connecting what I'd previously considered to be two discrete pieces of information. It was a slightly disorienting experience, one I last recall going through at university when I was struggling to understand something I'd been taught in a lecture. Much to my surprise I realised that I already knew what I'd been taught, just not from that particular perspective.

I can't help but wonder what other related facts are floating around in my head, just waiting for some neurons to flare up and join the dots. What else could I be missing out on...?