On Awareness

Every once in a while at a party, especially one where I may have had one or two drinks, I bring up the subject of “awareness.” This is not typically a subject most people seem to like talking about, but I feel like it is my duty as someone drinking an alcoholic beverage that I should extoll the importance of understanding the nature of awareness. Awareness is tricky because it is one concepts that require it in order to understand it. It becomes almost like trying to guess the amount of jellybeans inside a large jar; it is obvious whether there is a lot or a little, but just how many is always right out of sight.

The problem lies that awareness is about being able to recognize and identify. If you can’t recognize and identify, how can be aware of “awareness?” It is the same concept as a truly crazy person doesn’t know they are crazy, because if the person is aware of the erratic nature of their actions, then there is still some remnant of what can be considered sane. This is crucial to understand when a person drinks a depressant such as alcohol. As the body slows down, the brain isn’t able to function as well as it could. While there are obvious things the brain will notice as the person becomes more inebriated, such as sluggish muscle movements, the things that start shutting down in the brain are too subtle to be noticed right away.

Though, there are similar changes when a person is just naturally sleepy, and perhaps that is what makes it a little dangerous. Sure, when someone is drinking, they at least have enough warning (hopefully) that they shouldn’t be doing any sort of activity that requires some sort of caution, but when a person hasn’t got enough sleep and is going to work, that person doesn’t think that their awareness is impaired in any way. I remember one time I was walking to my high school, and I saw two people in two different cars stop at perpendicular stops in a cross section, wait three seconds, and proceeded to crash into each other. They were both following the law, but neither seemed to notice that the other was there. I had to hurry to school, so I didn’t see what the eventual conclusion was, but I did see two very confused people step out of their cars.

It makes me wonder how much we think we are aware is compared to how aware we really are. For example, I recently got new glasses. Before I had mostly rimless, round frames. I decided to change my look completely with very visible rectangular, dark blue frames. I went through my days and not a single person noticed. I even had somebody remark at lunchtime that she didn’t know I was here today, even when she saw me earlier in the day. I suppose that no comment is better than somebody remarking on how bad my new glasses look, but it did bum me out a little. Though I couldn’t help but think of all the things I don’t notice. But if I don’t notice the things I didn’t notice, how do I know that I’m not noticing them?

Maybe the only solution is to do the best you can to take care of oneself and hope for the best. There will always be things our brains edit out for the sake of convenience, but I think it is imperative to meditate a while and rethink the things that we may not realise we are ignoring. Editing I think is important in all facets of life, but we should always be aware of what we are editing, especially if we find ourselves in a situation that we didn’t desire. We all must be aware that we may be a perspective change away from happiness.