Agony and Ecstasy

27
ganised function of the body, its blood-circulation or disorder of
some glands, but is usually symptomised as an emotional indifference,
which is indolence of the mind. We may leave the discovery of
physical symptoms and causes to medical men who can tell us how
they originate and where. But an intelligent approach will want
to understand the reason why there is at times an indifference in
emotional feelings, which is a tardiness amounting to laziness in the
understanding of symptoms and events. It is not that the mind
is incapable of understanding, but it is reluctance in directing the
mind to understand, or even to see a problem, rather pursuing a
policy of self-delusion.
It is a typical attitude of escape by ignoring the issue, when
there is an unconscious suspicion that, if action is taken it might
result in unpleasant developments. Thus one turns a blind eye and
a deaf ear, and pretends ignorance as an excuse for non-action. It
is an obvious case of extreme isolation in search of self-protection.
This insensibility is much more common than one would expect;
and it expresses itself in a policy of non-involvement, leading up to
callousness. Such attitude is a withholding of awareness through
fear of consequences, fear of loss to oneself; and thus there may be a
shifting of attention in order to escape involvement by means of sublimation.
All striving for the attainment of an ideal is basically an
escape from actuality, an artificial insensitivity to what is, through
focussing one’s attention elsewhere. It is only an open mind, which
is not prejudiced by memory and which does not escape into idealism,
only an open mind that can be sensitive and alive and aware
in understanding, all-embracing in sympathy, and truly universal in
love.
Sensitivity is not something which can be developed. It is always
there, but we protect it, as we wear shoes, so as not to get hurt.
But the hurt is only an idea, a concept of fear, not of the future
that may never happen, but fear of possible loss. And what can
one possibly lose but oneself, that fixation of an ideal of security