While You Wait

I always seem to be waiting for some future event but what I am doing now, as  I wait, makes all the difference.  In the grand scheme of things, we are all waiting to die; even if that thought is morose, it is true.  The one life event that we cannot escape is the death of this living organism we call our body.  And what we do while we are waiting for that to happen is what makes life interesting.

I’ve been to Medicaid facilities that provide minimal space and care to those who cannot afford anything better.  These places are the last stop on the way out for a lot of people.  It seems that once ensconced in one there is no getting out.  One has to be destitute to get in, so how can one get out.  Many of these people are quite literally sitting around waiting to die.  They gaze disinterestedly at a TV screen, or simply sit there and look at whatever passes into their field of view.  They aren’t doing much of anything more than waiting—to die.

This can be thought of as an extreme but is it?  How many others are sitting around in their houses, apartments, trailers, or rooms and pass the time of day in a distracted way watching whatever comes into view, mostly daytime television programs.  But these and others, me included, spend a lot of their time distracted from their lifetime aim.

If one were to answer the question, “What are you doing?” by saying, “I am working on aim,” he/she would know that they are participating in life and living and progressing towards achievement of that aim.  To be able to honestly state this as the answer to the question is far from an easy thing to do.  It requires that one know what his/her aim is and then that he/she be able to select activities that are consistent with achieving it.

One of the features of a large organization is the departmentalization of activities that allow a worker to do that specific thing that fulfills his role.  All resources are provided for him and it is up to him to get the required results that fulfill his purpose.  Organizations evolve, what was a required role ten years ago may no longer be appropo to the current requirements.  But specialization (departmentalization) continues to be the way large organizations operate to achieve whatever results they require.

It can be argued that the organizational model reflect the way beings are structured.  IOW, we are departmentalized in order to achieve aim.  There are many activities that the body performs as it lives that are specialized; even some of these are further subdivided into even more specialized activities.

Think of digestion for example; a large quantity of material is ingested during the course of a day-week-month-year-lifetime, all of it is masticated, mixed with saliva, swallowed, passed into the stomach, dissolved, passed into the intestines, metabolized into useful compounds on a molecular level, made available to where it is needed, traded for used, damaged, or useless molecules, which are then carried away.  I don’t even know what I’m writing about except that it is a huge, highly specialized activity that goes on constantly throughout the life of the body and one that does not require the concern of the “active” part of the mind, except to select what to ingest.  This same thing is true for other bodily activities, all with the express purpose of allowing the being to work on s.t. else; ideally to work on aim. 

The nature of the organization of the brain-body goes beyond the support of the physical functions.  The many personae that are part of the being also have desires and aims that may or may not be consistent with other personae in the being.

A gross example is those personae in the sexual center that have the ultimate aim of procreating and reproducing the species.  There are times that needs of these personae become so urgent that other, more important needs of the being are put aside.  This phenomenon occurs not only in the context of the sexual center but also among the other centers as well.

There is always the danger that an activity to satisfy appetites, i.e. physical gratification, takes precedence over those that tend to achieve lifetime aim.  It takes a strong true “I” to deal with these.  It is only the strength of the desire of the true “I” of the being to achieve the aim of the lifetime that rescues the being from perdition.  

Other aims of personae that comprise the being are there for the doing.  It can only be hoped that having done them will advance the being towards his aim of this lifetime.

There are also many subordinate aims that can be selected for work.  My endeavors, for example, each has an aim, a reason for being pursued and writing this blog is one example; it is not necessarily my ultimate aim but certainly an aim worth pursuing.  Working on these other aims can result in strengthening the ability of the being to achieve lifetime aim.  Work on lifetime aim can be accomplished in the background while working on subordinate aims is carried out by those personae in the driver's seat.