Awareness II

Let's talk about another aspect of awareness, and that is, being aware of your surroundings and situations. In my experience, most people are not always as aware as they should be, and that is probably a result of being in soft situations as they grow up. Mom and Dad probably protectedtheir little baby so that nothing bad could happen to their child, but in doing so, they eliminated the need to be aware of danger in situations. Almost all situations have an inherent risk to them, and if a person does not learn about the possibilities of dangers, they will stumble into them blindly.
When I was young, about 6 or 7 years old, I had a knife I had gotten out of the kitchen drawer. I was trying to cut open a beanpod that was really tough, because I wanted to see what was inside the bean. I ended up stabbing myself in the hand, a scar I have nearly fifty years later. My parents didn't ban knives from me, no, they figured quite rightly that pain is a rapid teacher, and I would learn my lesson. I did.
That is but one example. The world is full of them, but most people are locked into a city life, and never really get out into nature to see what's really going on in the world. I was fishing one day, and I noticed a mother duck with about a dozen little ducklings, paddling along the edge of this lake. I noticed that she was desperately trying to keep the ducklings in a tightly packed formation, close to her. As they paddled across some open water, one of the ducklings lagged behind to eat on some moss, or perhaps a bug. It didn't lag behind by much, but it was enough. As I watched, a bass rose up under it, and in a flash it was gone, food for a fish. There was nothing the mother could do, except keep trying to be a mom to the remaining ducklings.
Life can be like that, catching you unawares, but if you try at all times to be aware of where, when and why you are, the chances are minimized. All wild animals have this awareness-( if you watch deer, they eat with their ears perked up, so nothing can sneak up on them)- the ones that do not, become part of the food chain. So will we if we are not careful. In this day and age, there is much less room for error, as there are so many more people. The saying is that only the strong survive, and with people, our main strength is our brain, although sometimes one has to wonder.
Now, there are two kinds of awareness- the kind that helps keep you alive, and self-awareness, that which enables you to at least be true to yourself, if noone else. That is a subject for another day. For now, let us all concentrate on staying alive and free. To do this, you have to live in the moment. You should feel the wind on your face and know the direction it is coming from. Smell the smells the wind brings you. Do not just look at something, but really SEE. See not just the basics, but the completeness. See with your peripheral vision as well as your direct sight. The term ' being blindsided" means that it comes at you from the corners of your vision.
You have to have a complete grasp of what is within your observable sphere at all times, or you might be a statistic, which is another way of saying that you have become a lesson to someone else.
And that would be sad for you.