When Self-Interest Protects self and Creates Consequence for others: DAY 454

When Self-Interest Protects self and Creates Consequence for others: DAY 454

With spring (or shall I rather say summer, due to the hot, dry weather) being here – more of the ‘little people’, bugs and insects etc. on the farm have been emerging and with this – spiders. With living on a farm, you realise just how fast a spider can spin its web – for example, one moment you’re walking down a path and it’s all clear; a few minutes later you walk that same path and you’re walking through spider webs.

So, on the way to the laundry room one evening – where you have to walk out of the kitchen door to the laundry area/room, with the light shining on the outside porch – my eye just caught onto a spider that had weaved a web from one corner of the room to the other in such a way that, I cannot pass through the porch without walking into the web. My first instinct, interestingly enough, was to duck underneath the spider-web and to then walk underneath it, because I couldn’t see where the spider was, nor the beginning/end of the web as it was dark and the light only provided so much light to be able to see. Then I stopped for a moment realising: “wait a minute, I am only thinking of myself here, only thinking of me avoiding this web – what if someone else comes walking here, doesn’t see the web and gets tangled in the web along with the spider, with having no idea what spider it is it could cause consequence for them.”

Because it was literally that my eye just caught a glint of the web – if, out of the corner of my eye I didn’t see the web, I would’ve walked into it.

But, the point I’d like to emphasize here is what happens when you only think about yourself in a moment, and do not consider others. Because it was only me there, in that moment, passing through the door – in that moment with there being no-one else, it’s like the Mind tunnel-visions one to only take that moment in reality into consideration, as though it is only ‘self existing’ in that moment. Yes, from a physical perspective that is so – but, expanding space and time – there will be others in the evening/the next morning walking that same path. So, it shows how the mind can be geared to self-interest, with not expanding one’s view/consideration in moments ‘beyond that physical moment in space and time’ and beyond ‘only self’. How this can create possible consequences for others. So, I traced the web’s beginning and end – fortunately saw that it was the spider that simply moved from one corner to the next and it had spun its web, with bugs already caught in it, in a different area; however – if I would have walked into it, it would have disturbed the spider’s web. So, I disconnected the link from one corner to the other, ensuring it doesn’t disturb the spider’s web. So, there were actually more ‘beings’ involved in that moment that I would have missed if I had just thought about myself and ducked underneath the web.

So, it’s to have a look at how such a point even relates to so many things we think/do in our relationship to others – how often we only think about ourselves, how we feel, where we tunnel-vision our minds in relationship to interactions/conversations with others, think/do/say things that are so closed-minded and self-interest based, that we do not consider other’s perspectives / insights / starting points and look at the ‘bigger picture’ of how our thoughts, words and deeds affect/influence others and we cannot see this, because we don’t take others/our relationship to them into considerations – don’t realise how our thoughts/words/deeds in moments without awareness can affect/influence another’s mind/life.

So, the point to look out for here, to consider here – is where/with who/when do we tunnel-vision our thoughts/words and deeds, don’t look beyond ourselves / a moment and in that: create consequences for others that could have been avoided.

We’ll continue in the next post with more examples