He Who Attends – updated 2017
The truth is we are never going to attend to only one or the other. We will always be paying attention to the trite and base things to some degree. To WHAT degree is the question.
Do you spend your entire day thinking of these trivial, maybe mean-spirited things? Do you focus continually on gaining things and status for yourself? Do you worry constantly about how you appear to others? Do you judge others based solely on surface elements?
And the bigger question, do you offset any of those obsessions with deeper thoughts and actions that help you call into question your focus, that help turn you towards higher good for yourself and others.
Maybe it is church that does it, listening to the sermon. Maybe it is walking in nature. Maybe it is reading wisdom from the ages. Maybe it is watching and evaluating the moral tales on TV (yes, there are many good lessons to be learned on TV). Whatever it is, are you paying attention? How are you balancing your life towards the greater things?
It doesn’t happen by accident, especially in a capitalist driven world that is geared towards wanting you to be a consumer, to spend money. You have to be deliberate about inventing yourself, about creating the greater self you want to be.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“He who attends to his greater self becomes a great man, and he who attends to his smaller self becomes a small man.” – Mencius, 372 – 289 BCE, Chinese philosopher
