The weather does what nature demands. We two-leggeds then make adjustments and choose an umbrella, a sombrero, ball-cap, or perhaps a wool scarf, to meet the weather’s demand. Similarly, our daily activities demand responses. We wake up each morning having to digest dreams, check the weather, interact with people, animals, spilled coffee, beautiful sunrises, blizzards, or perhaps smelly garbage, or fragrant orange blossoms. Each situation requires an unconscious or conscious adjustment. Will our response produce a ‘Happy Hat’ or something less comfortable.
It might be fun to walk down a street, path, or trail and consciously muse about the ‘invisible’ hats you observe upon the heads of strangers, or even upon the heads of young dogs playing in the grass. How would you draw their hat or imagine their mood? How does that tip you regarding their imaginations about the hat you may be wearing?
Each day we check the weather and may grab a rain hat, yet moments later, the bright sunshine’s glare may make us wish we had taken a light broad-brimmed hat instead. What does a hat cover or protect? It can be an unspoken label. Should I wear a ball-cap, an officer’s hat, an administrator’s hat? Am I aware of the ‘hat’ I am wearing? Do I consciously choose to wear a: Submissive hat? Bully hat? Compassionate hat? Leader hat? Support hat? Sleepy hat? Or perhaps all ‘hats’ keep changing …even without our conscious consent.
The joy is, we do have the power to change hats if we carefully observe which one we are currently wearing.
How about perception…? A young man asked me recently, “How can one ever know what parts of themselves are actually them?” He’s a gentle man with lots of energy, and he is very conscious of life’s many mysteries, joys, and challenges. He asked me to write about his question nearly three months ago. I still search for a nugget of consciousness to address it. It seems simple, yet could the answer become exposed in the ability to find the right hat, or to take all hats off, baring ourselves to the endless possibilities and expansive wisdom within and without?
As with the weather, a protective hat may be required, or a moment may best benefit from no hat at all.
Chandler © January 16, 2020