These little foxes spoil the grapes along the vine. The soil sours and the good earth yields no more fruit. In our condition we are always prone, always susceptible, and always vulnerable to slip into a slanted and skewed point of view. The clarity of the landscape of this reality can become jaded towards wrong ideas which brew in our heads imaginary things which have no true existence. We can get lost from one moment to the next, believing our thoughts to be ‘right’ and following their trails until we find our feet stuck in the mud and rut of poor assumptions. In a very real way we are swimming in an ocean, struggling to keep our heads above water.

People all mean well, regardless of their actions. This world is filled with trivial misconceptions about trite expectations of how others should treat us. We harbour ill-will by some inner conversation which demands justice of the offences we find when someone cuts us off on the road, gives us a look we deem unfriendly or even dresses in a way which compels us to gossip. We fail to realize how wrong all of these petty thoughts and feelings are as they suck the sap straight out of our life force and waste it on emanating poor intentions out into the world.

As we eat food and drink water to sustain our body, so too does our psychology feed off the quality of our perceptions. We cannot expect our associations about the world and the people in it to be of good quality when we find ourselves digesting negative assumptions and judgments on a nearly continual basis. We are quick to the trigger all too often to accept the first reaction which bolts through our nerves. There needs to be some force of attention above the clouds of discontent so as to stop them before they ever have a chance of taking us over and making us think, feel or do things which we will surely regret from beyond the grave.

The sound mechanics of a healthy human being is to fly high above those clouds and to look down upon them with a sense of impartiality. How else can a man expect to keep an open heart if he lets it bruise so easily or grow callous by letting no one in? Attitude is everything in this game of life, where we measure the manifestations of others but expect nothing from them. Only to ourselves do we raise the yardstick to ensure we are doing our best to stay clear and free from the imposition of habitual beliefs about how the world must be for it to live up to our subjective standards.

What is a man but a creature with two orbs for sight, two lobes for hearing, nostrils for smelling, and nerves for sensing? These tools go numb if the brain high above them allows itself to sink beneath them. It is unnatural to the dignity of a man to allow his attitude to function under the sunken weight of a state of preemptive negativity. If he is always looking for a fight then he will always find one. So too by this dynamic can he reverse the situation into one where by a positive attitude with no expectations he stands guard to ensure that his inner state is kept clean and tidy, free of the chains of moral judgment which otherwise spoil the grapes.

The song of life is to be sweet and simple, as it is in nature even amidst the horrors which can be found there. For only in the realm of man do we find judgment imposed on events. Whatever is realized in one moment is strung tightly to a chain of events both before it and after, like the domino which falls by a law purely of cause and effect. To blame the domino before you is to lose total sight of the chain which comes before and the one which follows. It is to fail to see the bigger picture and realize that there is no one to blame in this convoluted drama of modern hive life, even if laws of justice must by necessity ensure that reprimands and penalties are tallied to those who merit it.