Thomas Leigh Diary

Helping Myself by helping Others

Although visualizing food is tough for Me, from time to time I find the courage to take the challenge. Maybe not so much with "juicy details", but asking Myself questions, like: "How it would be like to eat to My heart's content?", "How does it feel to know that the meal are big enough?" ^{(i.e. more than I would need)}

Sometimes I can afford this "thought experiment", as a form of last hope, maybe... but today I discovered a new component of that visualization: I've realized that having all of that I would need to reserve some part of the order to give it to someone who would be in that kind of a need I've experienced before.

Over the time I've discovered that some people share some food by handing it on: for example, putting some stuff in a bag and hanging on the fence, or placing it in another - relatively comfortable - place. Not anybody has enough imagination needed to figure out what place would suit human dignity, but they have at least some good will.

And tonight I've discovered a new need within Myself: a need to do similar thing whenever I can. I need this especially for Myself: maybe it sounds a little weird, but I consider this a form of recompense for My Own Being (in the context of past experiences - from the visualization's perspective). This way I wouldn't do it for others - although other people could benefit from that. I would do it for Myself, because I've begun to clearly perceive it as a form of helping Myself. Maybe it is a kind of a symbol, symbolic gestures, anyway. It's a little surprising - maybe because before I didn't pay attention to others, the hard circumstances of other beings were only hypothetical for Me, they were no more than a plain theory. It seems I needed to experience those hardship by Myself in order to empathetically recognize them around.

Now it reached a point in which I couldn't ignore it being well Myself: I would need to do it to feel completely well. The nearest comparison is that it would be like helping Myself, this part of Me who had suffered.

Moreover I realize that this behavior (a new habit) could probably give Me good feelings, if not excitement. It is interesting to know.