Look Both Ways
We tend to go in the direction that we are looking.
For instance, if I am in Chicago, toward the center of the U.S., and I look west toward California and start walking, it's not likely that I will arrive in New York which is behind me.
In the physical world, if I spend all my spare time playing golf, I am not likely to become a football player.
Socially, if I expend a great deal of energy and time carrying signboards with the radicals outside City Hall, the chances that I will climb very high on the corporate ladder are pretty slim.
In a more psychological vain, if I want to understand human nature, it probably wouldn't help too much for me to spend all my time studying geophysics.
And Spiritually, the likelihood of my becoming a Catholic Priest while worshiping in a Buddhist Temple is slim to none.
So that's an absolute. You go the way you look. It just makes sense, don't you think?
As an example, when I am riding my bicycle, I watch the road ahead. So, of course, I go straight ahead. But if I should turn my head to the right for some reason, I naturally go....
To the left!
Now my perfect picture is blown apart, I've just defeated my purpose. I doesn't make sense, but that's what I do. I go the opposite direction than where I am looking.
Why?
I think I know why.
In order to keep from riding off the road, which is the direction I am looking, I overcompensate and drift the opposite direction.
Of course what I want to do, and think I am doing is riding straight ahead. I think I am avoiding the danger of riding off the road, but what I am doing is in fact riding into the traffic lane and in mortal danger of getting hit by a car!
When I turn my head back to the road, and see where I am, I am shocked. Sometimes I am even panicked (especially if a car is swerving in order to miss hitting me.)
My first thought, when this happens, is "How did I get way over here?" I mean, I know what I thought I was doing; I know what I intended to do - but for all my good intentions, I could still have been dead as a doornail.
Now, you know as well as I do, If you have read much of my writings at all, that I am not telling you this in order to keep you safe while bike riding. It's just a build up (or set-up) for this:
On another page I wrote "Hidden Truths" where I explored how a person (me) could so blindly get off the path that I thought I was on. I won't go into any of that; you can read it for yourself. There I covered this subject quite thoroughly - so I thought, until my bike ride, which brought this new awareness into focus.
So, as I see it, we're not always going the way we think we are. And the drifting off track may be so gradual that we don't even notice it - until we almost get run over by the reality of our situation.
What's the cure to make sure this doesn't happen? I would say - check the signposts often; try to limit the time you spend looking to the left or the right; and look both ways.
No, I don't mean both right and left; I mean keep a sharp eye on where you are going, that it is where you want to go; and look behind to where you have been, that what you have passed are signs that indicate you have been where you intended to be.
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Tumbleweed
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