“We cannot recognize in ourselves the faults we criticize in others.” (ODAT, 5 September)
The obvious inference that can be made from this is that, if I want to identify the faults I am (apparently) unable to recognise in myself, the first task is to take the faults I criticise in others and then see if I have them myself.
Sometimes they will be there in attenuated form or manifest differently. But the underlying substance is the same.
In fact, the reason why the fault bothers me in someone else is precisely because I do know and recognise it in myself, feel guilty about it, but locate it outside of myself in order to shift the guilt.
Sometimes I will even catch myself eliciting the fault in others in order then to deride them for it. (There’s a technical term for this.)
The response to detecting a fault in another is to make use of it. Difficulties I experience are as much a gift as anything.