A few years back he had a near life experience
It might as well have been
A disaster movie
Stream of consciousness meets tsunami of denial
This funny little poem addresses a sort of reverse polarity of near death experiences. People that are alive and have a near death experience are typically glad to return to life and are often powerfully reinvigorated by the experience. On the other hand, people who are just cruising on autopilot, barely alive, may find a true life experience overwhelming or threatening. Seeded by a minimum of real life experiences, some people may find denial the best coping mechanism to extinct such pesky life experiences, never really allowing them to take root or lead them to places anew. Of course, most of us live somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of full consciousness. Paying attention takes energy and focus. Most of us are lazy enough to travel in well-worn grooves that demand less mindfulness. Certainly, even habitual behaviors can be experienced mindfully, but the energy and focus needed to see seemingly familiar situations with a high degree of freshness and openness can be daunting. If you had a thousand people go through the motions of a “regular” day of yours, they would each experience it differently. This is because any situation can be viewed from a vast array of perspectives. So, what would be the different perspective of your experiences from the point of view of the other people with whom you interact? What of people from a different country or culture? a different planet?! Our built-in egocentricity makes looking at everything only from our own perspective a default mode. Of course, the care-taking of our own selfish interests reinforces this tendency. It is no surprise that I am more interested in my own desires and interests than others. Nonetheless, a key characteristic of life is change and growth. To grow, to evolve, we must develop competencies to view our life and the life of others from an ever-growing array of perspectives. To be a competent human being we must be able to see life from a variety of perspectives. May you experience the vast richness of perspectives, seeing the depth of your own experiences and the depth of others’ experiences.
