Responding to the present

One responds to their environment all the time, knowingly or unknowingly. A pothole in the road makes a biker steer away from it, untimely rains make everyone huddle under cover and a raging pandemic makes the populace hole up in apartments. There is nothing special about it. But there is always a second layer of response to the events unfolding around us. A layer of idiosyncracies, where one does things that are not necessarily needed to be done in that particular way. A layer that showcases more clearly the person’s (or a group’s) identity and way of thinking. When tired, one can sit on the couch or on the ground, exercise could mean swimming for one and cycling for another and on being hungry one can cook food or order a swiggy.

We often take our responses for granted almost to the point of assuming that we donot have a choice. We take our identities for granted and keep making default repeat choices without questioning if it is still the right response to the happenings around us. If they are achieving the best they can for our goals. Our conditioning overshadows our connect with the present. What if we asked time and again to ourselves. Is our response to a certain event around us, the best we can do to address it?