6:22 a.m.
This morning in the shower I happened to look down and momentarily focus upon the burn scars on my forearms from the oven. It brought my mind to the subject of inattentiveness and I thought how much pain - physical, emotional and spiritual - could have been avoided had I just been paying more careful attention - physically, emotionally and spiritually, all my life.
When one is inattentive it opens a direct pathway to pain. Perhaps to some extent our souls seek this pain as an often express pathway to awakening. But this carelessness does not only cause pain and hardship to our own person, but to our loved ones and really the world.
There is a reality that we live in every moment which is slightly (or grossly) different for everyone. Each reality is valid. By having infinite valid realities, how can we ever own anything? We cannot, we can only experience it.
As such, the selfish mentality is a social construct. Evolutionarily, perhaps, and unique to humans, definitely. One of the first concepts american babies grasp is that of "mine". It comes even before the sense of self is fully developed. We want to grasp and hold on to things and keep them for ourselves. When this mentality is unchecked by nature - where gain is balanced by loss - or encouraged by nurture, we raise our children with the mistaken notion that not only is possession important but holds some permanence that is, in fact, false.
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