This sounds like a case of "wrong" perspective. (Whoa, what?! Yes, keep reading pls^^)

Like someone believing (to believe) in Nihilism. To Nihilism, I haven't thought of a good and correct counter-statement, except:

"You are simply wrong on all accounts, but by such a small amount that it's hard to point to, because it will sound like »You don't have a right to your own perspective«", (Of course, I also would not agree with disallowing personal opinions (as long as we ARE talking about opinions, not facts).)

Granted, I haven't tried to have that kind of discussion since I really started reading and applying the Sequences. But that may be due to my growing habit of not throwing myself into random and doomed discussions, that I don't have a stake in.

But for Bruce, I think I can formulate it:

I am aware of the fact that I still don't allow myself to succeed sometimes. I have recently found that I stand before a barrier that I can summarize as a negative kind of sunk cost fallacy ("If I succeed here, I could have just done that ten years ago"), and I still haven't broken through, yet.*

But... Generalizing this kind of observation to "We all have this Negativity-Agent in our brain" feels incorrect to me. It both obscures the mistake and makes it seem like there is a plan to it.

If I think "Okay, you just detected that thought-pattern that you identified as triggering a bad situation, now instead do X" I feel in control, I can see myself progress, I can do all the things.

If I think "Damn, there's Bruce again!", not only do I externalize the locus of control, I am also "creating" an entity, that can then rack up "wins" against me, making me feel less like I can "beat" them.

It's not an agent. It's a habit that I need to break. That's a very different problem!

I assume that people will say "Bruce is a metaphor". But, provided I have understood correctly, the brain is very prone to considering things as agents (f.e. natural gods, "The System", The whole bit about "life being (not) fair", ...), so feeding it this narrative would seem like a bad idea.

I predict that it will be harder to get rid of the problem, once one gives it agency and/or agenthood. (Some might want an enemy to fight, but even there I take issue with externalizing the locus of control.)

[*In the spirit of "Don't tell me how flawed you are, unless you also tell me how you plan to fix it", I am reading through Fun Theory to defuse it (yes, first read, I am not procrastinating with "need to read more"):

For me it's: I don't want to do X, I want to do something enjoyable Y. And then, when I do Y, I drift into random things, that often aren't all that enjoyable, but just continue the status quo. All the while X is beginning to loom, accrue negative charge and triggering avoidance routines. But if I do X instead, I don't know how to allow myself to take breaks without sliding into the above pattern. So I intend to optimize my fun and expand the area of things that I find fun. That reorientation should help me with dosing it, too. (And yes, I do have adhd, in case you read it out of the text and were wondering if you should point me there ^^)

Also I recently discovered a belief (in...) that I like to learn. I realized that I really don't like learning. I like understanding, but what I call "learning" has a very negative connotation, so I barely do it. Will discover how to effectively facilitate understanding, too. ]