You live what you've learned

I do admit to listening to Linkin Park. One of my roommates last year got me started on it (Deep Blue See - He's awesome!). I really enjoy some of their lyrical work and music, though much of it begins for sound formulaic if not mixed in between work by other artists.

All that to say I was just hearing Points of Authority, and listened the lyrical hook for the first time.

It's an interesting factor in human development. Rather than living to avoid the mistakes we've made before, often we're content to live the patterns we've already established, even if--when pressed--we admit those patterns are destructive.

Let's take, for example, a habitual 'go-along-with-the-crowder' who is invited to a party based around drug use. Such a person might say "well, I'll go, but I won't try anything" though if questioned they would admit that in every similar case before, they've gone along with the group's activities.

So they go to the party, do some drug (any drug, pick one) and maybe it's a great experience. Maybe it's a horrible experience. For the sake of this discussion, assume it's a good one, the first time.

After a few subsequent uses and some scary situations (OD scares on the part of friends, drug-induced nausea, etc) one would assume that such an individual would realize "Y'know, when I go to these events, bad things happen to me. I will stop attending them."

But that often isn't the case. Instead, the user will continue in a cyclic pattern, simply repeating the paths they've walked many times before.

Why is it that human nature (I'm speaking both macro and microcosmically), is so cyclic? Doesn't this fly in the face of logic for a species that possesses such a powerful ability to learn and adapt?

We talk about humanity being such a strong life form because it's so adaptable, but so rarely do we learn our lessons and actually get on with the frigging adapting. It's such a symptom of our species that we have our own trueism for it: Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And we repeat history all the time.

What's up with that?