Blindness.  What if you discovered that a very normal and natural part of aging could in a small percentage of cases, blind you if not treated immediately and even if you
were?  What if your vision, something so wonderful that you take for granted were
suddenly threatened, with symptoms that are possibly those of impending
retinal detachment, symptoms that occur spontaneously, but that test the delicate
balance of your life?

Then you might think.  You might begin to wonder, what would I do?  What if I lost
sight in one eye?  How would I live?  How would I be treated and what if I fell
into a deep, deep devolution and into the gutter like a beggar?

What if, what if.  Gets one thinking about how much suffering goes on in this world.
Gets me to wondering how many suffer minute by minute, day by day, far worse
than even my own greatest fears can make me suffer.  Children.  The poor, the meek, the humble and the grandiose.  So much pain.  So much hopelessness.

There is a place where those who are suffering go, and I know in their minds and hearts they go there. It is a kind of sink hole in the middle of the belly, a place of comfort, a link to the third eye for those who have spirited  through days of stress collapsing into  stolen moments of relief.

How many of us suffer in this life, quietly, hopelessly, and without recourse.
How many voices cry in the wilderness, NEVER TO BE HEARD, no comfort, no
compassion, no solace.  No hope.  What desolation in this world of mind, where heart cries and mind flies off in a fantasy of expectations not yet realized, as if disconnected from all heart?

How much suffering this world contains--look around you.  See it.  Hear it. Feel it.
Taste it.  Smell it.  Take moments from your thrills, your dreams, your illusions, your distractions and remember that pain exists.  Maybe not for you, now, but for
others whose cries are muted by your deafening distractions...

Then, tomorrow, on your mundane way to your mundane routine, think for a moment
how grateful you are that you are not suffering now.  And say a small prayer for those who do.