Awareness

[Crom]

Whenever I ask people about how to live well the conversation usually ends up about awareness. Apparently paying attention is an integral part of living well. Several heroes from stories I've read have had almost superhuman awareness, or near psychic awareness when it came to characters like Jedi.

Does anyone know how to gain heightened awareness? Or just how to enhance awareness, then?

[Darth Wong]

Whenever I ask people about how to live well the conversation usually ends up about awareness.

It wouldn't end up that way if you were asking me. I think living well is a matter of making sure that you've taken care of all the essentials (food, water, clothing, shelter, basic amenities) and you have people in your life who love and care about you.

Apparently paying attention is an integral part of living well.

So you'll be aware that you're living well?

Several heroes from stories I've read have had almost superhuman awareness, or near psychic awareness when it came to characters like Jedi.

That could come in handy for a hero, but heroes generally don't live well. Their lives tend to constantly move from one near-fatal crisis to the next; I do not consider that "living well".

Does anyone know how to gain heightened awareness? Or just how to enhance awareness, then?

Awareness is more a matter of intelligence and experience than raw sensory perception in my opinion. You can run the same scenario past ten people and they might all hear and see the same things, but one of them might notice something important that the others didn't. That's what we generally call "awareness", and it's related to his ability to sort between important and unimportant, not his raw sensory abilities.

[Crom]

It wouldn't end up that way if you were asking me. I think living well is a matter of making sure that you've taken care of all the essentials (food, water, clothing, shelter, basic amenities) and you have people in your life who love and care about you.

I've always thought those things were important too, but I think what those people were telling me was that to appreciate what you have in life, and to be better prepared for what life may throw at you, you need awareness. At the very least to defend what you love and care about.

Apparently paying attention is an integral part of living well.

So you'll be aware that you're living well?

I said that poorly. What I meant was that to live well you should be aware of life. I've spent large periods of my life on a kind of autopilot, and I see it like the saying that it's the journey, not the destination, that counts in life. I've been missing the view on my way to the abyss.

That could come in handy for a hero, but heroes generally don't live well. Their lives tend to constantly move from one near-fatal crisis to the next; I do not consider that "living well".

I wouldn't be sure. They are moving from crises to crises, but take the main character from the Lone Wolf and Cub series. His life is constantly in danger, and he has to be constantly aware of his surroundings, but is his life poorer because of it? I suppose in terms of the essentials you listed above, definitely. But I was thinking that someone like that is far more alive than someone who justs drifts through their lives, never questioning, or noticing their surroundings.

Awareness is more a matter of intelligence and experience than raw sensory perception in my opinion. You can run the same scenario past ten people and they might all hear and see the same things, but one of them might notice something important that the others didn't. That's what we generally call "awareness", and it's related to his ability to sort between important and unimportant, not his raw sensory abilities.

So all I can really do is gain more experience? Nuts. Well, nothing to do but practice then.

Thanks for your input,
CROM