State: unaltered

This morning I went to donate blood for a cousin who will have an operation next week. As I was sitting having my blood withdrawn, I saw my fellow blood donors and I thought how strange was all of this, sitting there with more people draining our blood so that they can give it to other people.

I consider this far removed from nature, at least for the recipient, because blood loss must have been a common occurance, and I would not be surprised if blood loss was actually reinvigorating in the medium term. Blood transfusions, however, are a recent development.

But the fact that it is removed from nature does not mean it is harmful or evil or wrong in any way, it just means it needs to be scrutinized more carefully. I remember reading cyclists used to recycle their full volume of blood in order to gain competitive advantage, and it sounded like a terrible thing, a vampire-like setting where the lust is not blood but championships.

I myself felt vain because I found myself thinking that it could impact my physical performance for some days, and I’ve been quite dilligent at the gym and at yoga recently. “Oh, how vain catch myself thinking that”, but proper thinking is not to shutting oneself up. Proper thinking is… I actually deleted some sentences because I notice I don’t know what proper thinking is. Let us meditate on it.

A child will never get hurt if the parent protects him at all times, but this impedes development. The parent ought to pay attention at what the child is doing. If the child is getting in trouble, the parent will feel anxiety, but some degree of trouble is necessary for development. The child is the heart and the parent is the mind.

Proper thinking is supportive of the curiosity of the heart. It would involve inverting my direction of action. I see blood donation like a vampire conspiracy because I have not used the heart to understand the reason why I donated blood. It is love of course!