Cognitive science is waking up to the simple fact that just being there, immediate coping, is far from simple or reflexive. Immediate coping is, in fact, the real “hard work,” since it took the longest evolutionary time to develop. The ability to make intentional, rational analyses during breakdowns appeared only recently and very rapidly in evolutionary terms. Francisco Varela

The benefit of what Varela is referring to as “breakdowns” is the opportunity to restructure learned (and thus usually automatic) behavior and develop new patterns of action, new patterns of understanding.

It is at the moments of breakdown, that is, when we are not experts of our microworld anymore, that we deliberate and analyze, that we become like beginners seeking to feel at ease with the task at hand. Varela