The good inner state
I was on a bus one morning. As it drew near
to my stop, I got up and started to walk down the narrow aisle. A young man who immediately made me feel uncomfortable suddenly put a bag down in front of me, blocking my path. I sensed that a few
people had moved in behind me, guessed why, and immediately moved my backpack
round to the front so that no one could take anything.
The man smiled ruefully and moved his bag out
of my way. I turned round; I did not like the look of the people standing very close to me. The area is not good; there are services
that attract many people who are best avoided.
I was pleased with myself for immediately
seeing the risk and taking appropriate action. I realised that the outcome
could have been very different if my inner state had not been so good at the
time.
I had had a good night’s sleep and a good
breakfast. I was looking forward to doing some interesting work on a database:
I enjoy bringing order out of chaos. I was looking forward to seeing a very
good film on TV that evening.
I was living quite comfortably in the real
world that day, and had some spare capacity for dealing with the unexpected.
The bad inner state
On another occasion, I had a successful
shopping trip in an area I like very much. There is an open-air market and
other attractions, and I got a lot of stuff. I should have quit the game while
I was ahead and gone home, but I decided on impulse to take a long, scenic bus
ride into Kent. This 'good idea' turned out to be a very big mistake; it resulted in a small-scale nightmare scenario.
