Preparing for Everything

Preparing For Everything.mp3
2 Minutes 11 Seconds. Read by UK robot Elizabeth.

by Aaron Matlen

Each day new experiences come our way. How can we prepare for...

... love and loss,
... pain and disease,
... death and decay,
... accidents and unpredictability,
... financial stability and the struggle to find happiness in work/love/self?

Natural emotions that accompany our lives...

... guilt and shame,
... apathy and depression,
... fear and desire,
... anger and pride?

...the list goes on and on and on.

How can one possibly be prepared? The truth is you can't. There is no way to prepare for everything. By networking with each other like we have, we increase our chances of being prepared. So make connections. To your family, your friends, the new people you will meet. As a whole, we are very prepared, but not of course, for everything. But we take life as it comes. We are evolved to be adaptable. Intelligence has made us the most adaptable form of life we know of.

The mind adapts to context and feelings eventually emerge. I have a suspicion most of our emotions are socially evolved. At least emotions became more intense as they were better defined and felt conditional to others. We need others to see our good or bad works to feel pride or shame.

We tend to tie up our emotions making all things conditional and dualistic. Love is wonderful until its gone, then it becomes horrible. When all our best ideals are tied up with our lowest values, instincts, and emotions, does this negate our best ideals? When love is tied with fear, is love worth it? Why is there fear? Is fear necessary to love? Is there a way out of dualism and the connection between good/bad? In a word: yes.

The way out is to untie the knot of dualism, to make unconditional our highest ideals -- to make them self-evident and universally affirmed. In every situation -- even the loss of love -- we must reconnect with love. If love is lost, then the longing for lost love is the remembrance of a joy so great that it returns you to joy, even in sadness. A plurality of feeling, a multiplication, a transformation. Feel on many levels. Untie the knot of dualism not by negating or separating, but by tying the two dualistic traits back together in a higher expression.