Obliviousness and Types

There are people who know me well who think I am oblivious to most things. For someone studying consciousness this is not a good reputation to have. It causes my credibility to be questioned. And, as much as I try to rationalize or justify my lack of awareness of the physical world, I must admit that I do have a weakness in this area.

Yesterday I was sitting outside with a group of people. One by one they got up, went into the house and changed their clothes. I was wearing long pants, a long sleeve tee shirt, a long sleeve shirt, sweatsocks and heavy shoes. After some period of time they all came back and we resumed our conversation. One of them asked me if I was hot. I said I hadn't noticed. They had all changed into shorts and tee shirts. I had not noticed they had changed or that it was hot.

Within a few minutes one of our guests stood up and started to walk to the other side of our deck. Everyone seemed a little disturbed. There were a couple of bees flying around and it was annoying them. I had not noticed. We then went into the house to have dinner. Now that I think about it, although it did not strike me at the time, my wife on at least three occassions either wiped food off my face or reminded me to. In addition, she asked me a couple of times to pick up food I had dropped on the floor. Matter of fact, whenever our kids bring their dogs to the house the dogs always hang out at my chair during dinner.

There is no excuse for any of this. I do want to say, though, that during these periods of apparent oblivion, I am listening very carefully to what is being said and noticing intently the emotional state of everyone around me. When I enter a room of people at a party I instantly am aware of the mood of the room. Before too long I have a good handle on the gist of most of the conversations that are occurring and the dynamics of almost all the relationships. By the end of the evening I have formed a strong opinion of the consciousness and intelligence of most of the people at the party, and their level of comfort and confidence in the situation.

My wife, on the other hand, will have noticed much less about the people but will have a total picture of all the home furnishings, art work, room layouts, as well as what everyone was wearing and the color of their hair and nails. She is an artist and her perception of the world is different than mine. Whenever we go someplace she remembers all the landmarks and can easily find her way back to wherever it was that we went. I remember none of the landmarks and have no idea how we went or how to get back.

We all have strengths and weaknesses. We judge each other by what we consider to be important based on how we see the world. There are those who place more weight on appearances, manners, and politeness, and those who care more about authenticity and sincerity. There are those who are attracted to people with high intelligence and bold and aggressivness personalities and those who are attracted to kind and gentle souls.

It is important to understand that there is a physical, mental, and emotional component to our lives. Each of these components has an independent existence. Each of these components has been trained and programmed based on our nature and our experiences. Each of us sees the world and makes decisions based upon whether our primary orientation is physical (our body), mental (our minds and thoughts), or emotional (our heart and feelings).

It is very useful to understand how we perceive the world and what type we are. Neither the intellectual, emotional, or physical type is better or on a higher level. Our lives would be less stressful and more productive if we did not judge but understood our type and the type of those with whom we interact. We need to observe the functioning of our physical, mental, and emotional parts and see where we need work. I need work on the physical. I have been working on it for years. I believe I have made some progress, although my wife and closest friends might question this.