All Is Vanity

          In days of yore when computers were computers and not PC's and we wrote our own computer programmes (those were the days!), it sometimes became advisable to write sub-routines to the main programme. These sub-routines were triggered whenever a certain set of mathematical conditions occurred. Unfortunately, it also sometimes happened that as a result of incorrect programming, the sub-routine would go into an endless loop, continuing to repeat itself uselessly until someone noticed the rapidly mounting pile of paper readout on the floor. At that point, drastic measures were call for, and a return to the mathematical drawing board.
          Sub-personalities, those examples of personal behaviour patterns, called into operation when a given set of circumstances emerge, behave in a similar manner to computer sub-routines. When we begin to behave in a certain way, it is often impossible to see anything 'wrong' or dysfunctional in our behaviour until something traumatic occurs. Then a change of behaviour is called for.
          I pointed out in my previous post that our recent house fire has had repercussions on various levels, not only on the material level. I do not know what triggers the switching on of this particular sub-personality that I have, but the trigger results in a focused, almost obsessional, commitment to the project on hand. It may be trying to rescue or make good a dysfunctional relationship, or completing a renovation project, or what-have-you, long after the project should have been halted. I say again, one is unaware that one has become obsessive until that severe event happens that halts one in one's tracks. Thus it is with our recent house fire.
          Interestingly, at least in my experience, enlightenment brings about an immediate and lasting change of attitude and behaviour. That is not to say that something else will not trigger that sub-routine/sub-personality in the future. I just hope I will see it coming, although I have never done so up until now. So why should things change?
          It does seem that the unconscious, psychological event has far more power than the physical/material event. Walking into that unconscious-made-conscious world makes me feel relatively small, powerless and maybe insignificant. On the material level, it is almost possible to shrug off the fire, get stuck in and deal with 'it'. Not so on a deeper level where something else seems to be operating through my life.
          So life will continue on its upward spiral. Patterns will repeat themselves but never in quite the same way again. What may seem to be new may in the end only be a reworking of old patterns. As the preacher said, "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!"