Lately I've been thinking about awareness, and the lack of it in life. Do you ever go through a day and get to the end and realise that you can't remember very much of it at all? I mean, we don't all have photographic memories, but there are times when I just have no idea what is going on around me... and I've been thinking about it.

There are two types of non-awareness that I can recall experiencing, the first being when not in the present at all, your mind is wandering so much that it makes it difficult for you to recall the present; and the second being when you are just soooo in the present that storing memories for posterity is impossible and you can't recall it. Perhaps this second type is not actually non-awareness, but a kind of ultra-awareness that only lasts for the moment you are there but is so acute... but it creates holes in your mind, and you can't remember anything later... it causes problems for long term awareness. The best example of this that I can think of is when I was dancing, I could rarely recall any of the good performances. I could recall being there if something broke my concentration - for example, once when I nearly stacked it on stage - but the times when I was totally in the zone of performance, when I was performing *well*, I never had any real memory of it other than a vague feeling when I was done that it must have been good. Sometimes sex feels like that too - if you're having the kind of sex that is so sensational that you can't think of anything else other than what is immediately happening... you can't remember the specifics of it afterwards, just that it was damn good. But yes, the more I think of this, the more I think this is likely to be some kind of uber-awareness rather than lack of awareness...

The first type truly is a lack and that's the kind that I worry about. I find sometimes that my mind is a wily creature, it does not like to be tamed. I notice it when I practice yoga that my mind wanders beyond what it should because I don't have the mental discipline to maintain focus on the task at hand. Sometimes though I think my lack of awareness is caused by being overwhelmed also... like when I am teaching sometimes, especially on Mondays when it is my first time trying out a new lesson, I find that the class sometimes passes in a blur, I am only vaguely aware of what I did and even less aware of how the kids reacted to what I did. I have to remind myself to watch for these things, to train my awareness...

But even sometimes in everyday situations I frustrate myself with my lack of awareness at what is happening around me. I daydream, I let my mind meander, and something different is happening inside me to what is happening around me. Sometimes I can't remember names or the specifics of conversations... sometimes that is because of a preoccupation, maybe of what they thought of me or of something I should be doing or will do or whatever... sometimes it is just lack of attention, lack of mental discipline.

I am annoyed that often I merely react to a situation rather than responding after a more careful analysis... my reactions are just a result of conditioning, not a result of thinking, adapting, consolidating... my reactions are old, and maybe sometimes they save me, but I am tired of being a slave to them. I want to learn to respond to the world instead. I want to pay attention more. I want to be more aware... because I feel like sometimes I am missing out.

Does any of that make sense?

Does anyone know how?

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