To repeat, for the sake of a new point, notice when watching the self, it makes no matter to the process which self is home inside, good, bad, ugly, or indifferent; none is treated any differently, just watched. That process of attentive looking keeps you alert to the foibles attending such matters dealing with any passion, in this case writing. Atentive Looking Stills All Longing. So noticing which self was at home inside, you picked up the phone with ease. On this occasion it mattered not in the least that you heard the click of a machine's recorded message. You listened attentively for the topic: Seniors and Their Medical Needs; you discerned straightaway yours were in order; so you placed down the earpiece, and welcomed the opportunity to take a break, before getting back to the screened-in page of your wording.
That whole scene could have proved gruesome had it involved other characters on the other end of the line, for it has gone that way on many occasions. But in the three transactions so described, there was enough care taken to notice and to look with some consistency, and all that kept the noticing engaged.
Some Cautions
Be clear about all this; this thing called Noticing goes by so many names and arises like earthy incense from every world religious tradition extant, and from traditions secular, interested not in the least in being religious. Notice, too, self-observation is hard work, and particularly hard to start. Also, self-observation is a powerful tool, so it usually helps to be connected to others who care about you and who notice too, and can reign in the puny will when it presumes strength of its own that is not its own to assume. In this day and age, a loving community helps in discerning, as well, the relative merits of all the commercialism, secular and religious, that can seduce the sensitive self and reduce it to the self fake.
Recommendations all round are to start with sitting, in the quiet, and to stay put, so far as the individual foundation allows for it. Bottom line here, though, above all be gentle with the self, whatever it's constitution or however destitute it seems. Tenderness cannot be in error, for while the act of noticing is not romance, it can be said to be akin to romancing a stone, and that calls for the keen and caring patience of the self of a scientist in deep study and observation of anything you please. Letting the self pace itself, can prove just right.
Naturally, whether you start with the quiet of your nest, or the buzzing, blooming confusion of the market, has to be your choice based on the type of person involved, solitary or sociable. Listen to yourself and stay connected in real community and you cannot in the end grow wrong.
Like anyone dealing with grief, You Need Not Do All The Noticing Today And You Need Not Do It All Alone, to see that the true self can be found waiting in the wings, not far away.
For the Great Surprise of the process is, The Room of Willfulness and The Room Plain share a bridge not so far between. Like every bridge of interest, it is both foreboding for the distance to cross, or the treacheries beneath, yet also inviting for finding out what's on the other side, and there's usually some glimpse of the delight over there.
Finally, that Bridge of Beauty, between the self real and fake, both divides by its two faces and unites by its one path crossing over. Or the one point of this wording, the one path is one verb that is likewise a noun that's on intimate terms with all other verbs and nouns. Notice.
