Stubbing Your Toe (Pain and Suffering for Lent)

There you are, moving along like you have so many times before… ouch!  Dang dang dang!   You’ve stubbed your toe.

Which actually tells us a lot about the mortal condition.

Kings shall see that which they have not considered

What’s happening when you stub your toe is that you are acting and its action that you are very very comfortable with.  Walking.  You can literally do it in your sleep.  Which means you aren’t paying attention.  But something minor has changed in the environment, something beyond what you expected, or you were distracted or set off by something else, and… ouch!

The feature of the mortal condition is that you can only do one thing and be one place at once, and that your focus is limited.  This makes your action meaningful.  But the conditions that make your action meaningful–a complex world with a myriad of possibilities that you are selecting among–also means that the world is constantly acting on you.  And your limited focus–which is part and parcel of mortality and meaningful action–means that the world often acts on you unexpectedly.

You stub your toe.

This raw bloody tip on your big toe is the Fall.