Thoughts 33

Intentions and Actions 4

Earlier I mentioned the conditions for experiencing the moment; when I was a child and experienced hot dusty days at my grandmother's. Since I have looked back and remembered that reality, thoughts have happened in a moment that seem to have relevance.

I have read that we humans look for patterns in what we experience and sometimes find them, even when they are not there. That may be what I have done in reference to an importance in a moment. If I am aware of the thought that seems to have importance, I act on it. Usually, I wait a few days to let it settle in so that I might be able to tell if it is just another of my crazy thoughts. Sometimes I will talk to someone about it whose opinion I respect, especially if I need to act quickly on the thought.

Two days ago I had one of those thoughts. It was what this post should be saying. Now that I have sat down to write, I believe it is a summation of what I have written in the “Thoughts and Actions” series, but in a personal way. I experienced the following.

Likely it started while I was in my teens, but I now know that by the time I reached majority I was trying to find who I was and what God was. I searched and examined; on and on. The older I got the more confused I was about both. The non-material pain became stronger and stronger. I was creating pain for others without thinking about it because of my egocentricity. If (a large if) everything is interconnected, while I was creating misery for others I was generating my own pain. Fortuitously, I was expose to a group of people who at first I definitely did not want to be around. After several months had elapsed, I sought out those same people. They reached out their hands to me. Through their words and more through their actions, they taught me what I believe today to be true love and tolerance. There maybe more to love and tolerance than what I understand. If that is so, I desire to find it. Now, who I am and what God is has no meaning.

I would have never seen how self-centered I truly was without their loving guidance. Before them, I did the “good” things; things that society said was good. The worthy things that I did were satisfying, but I was still manufacturing pain for others.

Today the balm that soothes my non-material pain and sometimes my material pain is reaching out to others and forgetting self. Love of this sort is its own reward. It can be done in many ways. Someone has to produce more than they consume so that others can produce non-consumable things; artists, scientist, etc. The producers also allow some to devote all their time trying to ease pain.

All my life I was told to do this and not do that. I was never shown the meaning of why.