Seen and Unseen - how do you make choices

I had a fascinating conversation with a friend who is setting up a community village in Maharastra. As part of this thinking about what and how, he spoke about seen and unseen structures in our lives. 

The seen are things like houses, roads, and perhaps even the atmosphere around us. It is so polluted, we might say.

The unseen are the beliefs and views that affect our governance, choices, opinions, and decisions on a daily basis. 

Both make up our experience as living beings. In fact, perhaps the unseen is more than the seen. But our bias is typically toward what we can see. 

So how does this affect us in the context of health? 

Look around you. You will see seemingly healthy people. Social media is full of them. Your circle of friends and family. You judge what you see.

But what you see is superficial. 

Yet, think about the number of times you made choices and decisions based purely on what you could see. Your friends were drinking and seemed hale and hearty. In fact, they seemed to be having the time of their lives. 

Your friend seemed to be able to do anything at all with no effect on their well-being. Stay up late, sleep only a little, eat anything she wants, and yet be fine. 

But what you missed seeing was everything else. The unseen.

Perhaps the reasons why. Perhaps the after-effects, which typically occur within the confines of their homes or, far worse, their bathrooms or their doctor's office.

You don't have the time to check. I have no inclination to report to you that everything was not what it seemed. 

Yet, we make choices based on what we see. To quote a famous fable, a man was looking for his ring where there was light.

Upon being asked where he lost his ring, he said it was dark. Why, then, are you looking for it here? Because there is light here, he said! 

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