The Unawareness Routine

This is something I had published elsewhere a while ago. I read it this evening and thought it worthy of sharing.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

I was watching my dog this evening as he was outside on his very heavy duty cable and equally heavy duty stake. While not suited for constraining an elephant, it definitely leaves no concerns for a 65lb mutt.

There is an ash tree growing in my back yard, which happens to fall within the circumfrence of the area reachable by said dog when attached to said cable. As I watched Flop explore the great outdoors, I became aware of something I had not previously considered. His explorations brought him within the vicinity of the ash tree. Surely you know the near future of the story, as we have all watched in amusement at the canine inability to comprehend cables and trees. He wound around a few times before freeing himself to continue exploring.

It is this few moments of decreasing circle of existence which I now wish to explore. As Flop wrapped and disentangled himself from the ash tree, I considered his lack of understanding, lack of awareness of his environment. A good, relatively intelligent dog, but lacking the comprehension of all characteristics of his environment.

Continuing this to humans, for I believe there are none amongst us with a full comprehension of the myriad aspects, rules, and components that make up the totality of our existence… what, then, are the limitations and/or influences which affect us that we are not aware of simply due to lack of understanding?

I am well aware that this is an open ended question of an epic nature, for if we simply knew and understood… we would understand the effects of these elements upon our daily lives. If we understood them, what more would we be able to accomplish? What obstructions would we remove from our lives? How large would our world become??? I will not attempt to answer it here, only to note that it is something which I will do my best to consider going forward in my life. What more would be possible if we could eliminate the unawareness routine?