Unselfish actions

The view from my hotel room in Porto Alegre

After some brief strolls through the centre of town, I decided to head back to "my" hotel that felt so completely out of time that I quickly forgot the big city vibes that basically radiate ambition, and enjoyed the quiet comfort of the hotel room.

After a while I turned on the computer, skimmed the headlines and, almost immediatley, turned it off again. I simply can't stand this display of vanity and selfimportance anymore. Moreover, the rationalisations of my younger years (cultured men are informed, to know what's going on helps to understand the world) I nowadays find preposterous for the media, by directing our attention, distract and cloud our brains. They tell us what they think we should concentrate on: American, Chinese and Russian politics, really?

Some weeks ago, a Brazilian friend told me she had been a few days with a distant relative suffering from dementia, who's husband had to be hospitalised. Her family berated her: This relative never wanted to have anything to do with us. How could you now take care of her?

I do not know, my friend said, I just did it. And, needless to say, I did of course understand the thinking of my family. All families think like that. Moreover, I also think like that. 

But nevertheless, you did it. And, I bet it wasn't easy, I said. It wasn't, she replied. To me, this means you changed your cause-and-effect thinking (everything has to have a cause) by putting into practise what your subconscious hinted at.

To calmly observe one's subconscious (not to be confused with gut feeling or instinct) leads to an awareness that puts aside the usual scapegoat blaming and can manifest itself in unselfish actions. We can act ourselves into new ways of thinking.