"The blacksmith's mare and the shoe-maker's wife are aye [always] worst shod."
___ Scottish proverb
Habit and overfamiliarity can cause some strange neglects in areas where we would least expect them. The things and people that we know best often prove to be furthest from our consideration, sometimes becoming so familiar to us that they feel like extensions of ourselves. This happens if things are unwinding equably like clockwork; when we become used to the easy rhythm, the habitual can become neglected. If our own self-respect is low or we frequently abuse our body and energy with overactivity, we may have a tendency to treat familiar things with the same neglect or contempt.
This is a dangerous pattern. Whether it is the tools of our trade or our partner who is misused in this way, sooner or later something is going to snap. Before a critical tool breaks or we come home to an empty bed, we need to reappreciate the familiar, lest we lose touch with it altogether.
The ability to truly see our familiar surroundings, possessions, and loved ones can be stimulated by an act of will or by looking through the eyes of stranger or visitor whose remarks and body language tell us about our environment in ways we have forgotten. Recreation is the best freshener of stale perspectives, because it takes us out of the rut of work and daily usage. It is then that we are able to see that the things we most value on our own doorstep.
"Reappreciate something or someone who is really close to you. Look with the eyes of the 'visiting anthropologist' to see how you are living in your environment and community."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
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