Some days ago news reported that a couple, while attempting to take a selfie, didn’t notice that the stroller and their baby who was inside, was slowly sliding from the pier to the sea. Luckily, a passer-by avoided the worst.

We don’t judge the individuals but we must analyze the circumstances.

When the primary intention (taking a selfie), takes over, you risk forgetting every other thing. Sounds, moving objects, signals…Everything disappears, vanished and swallowed by what makes the mind busy and held by something else in that moment.

In the martial disciplines, you can learn the concept of “active presence” (zanshin). Focusing on a precise intention is the base of aware behaviors as well as sentences.

We are all rather under siege of “good” intentions, which are often deprived at their root of a “true” intention.

A selfie, one more like, ultimately the worrying about the judgement we think others have about us, may sometimes, overshadow the capability to express a direct, simple, pure intention.

And this may lead to great disgraces.