The point of contact?

In a famously made up story about president Lincoln, it was said that when he was given ten hours to chop down a tree he spent the first nine hours sharpening his axe, and whilst appreciating the lesson that preparation is important. The vital part of our focus should not just be on the axe and the cutting edge, it really should be on the most important tool in this scenario, the person wielding the axe. That is the most
impressive element for me, I want to be the sort of person with the competence and confidence to know that is worth sharpening the axe for the first nine hours, that knows that if they are ready they can chop the tree down in just an hour, that they have the experience, the strength and technique to accurately estimate the time they will take. That they know how to apply pressure in perfect alignment at the perfect point of contact to do exactly what they intend with maximum efficiency and effectiveness, that is mastery over the point
of contact

That is a story of grace, ease and joy that I want to hear about, not just clever thinking and preparation, but how you become competent and confident at being a human being, that is at its core a growing being of
consciousness with inherent purpose, meaning, worth and flow. Which is not much to ask for and perfectly reasonable, just being good at being, so what is the point of contact that we should be concerned
with in our lives and put our efforts towards preparing for. It is going to look different in every life, we have different life situations, stories of who we are now, our abilities and competencies, and how it almost always certain is that it is going to involve other people. People are the trees that need chopping down, or in a slightly less horrific metaphor, you want to avoid walking into them, you want to treat them like a ancient woodland, imperfect but beautiful, treasured, respected and cared about.

At least that seems how a good person would want to act, or if the chopping down metaphor appealed to you, there might be some empathy work to be done before you are let loose in the woods, which is just being able to imagine being the tree in that scenario, and the self forgiveness that we are all just people trying to do a little bit better, to take better actions and improve our characters. However before this becomes an
invitation to a tree hugging festival, you might want to consider when the trees asked to be hugged, maybe there is a tree that can not wait for their destiny to be turned to a grand support beam to oversee drama and the seat of power, and has had enough of being molested by smelly purple beings. We can never really know, we can only act at the point of contact with the certainty of our intentions.

Whenever we talk to someone or our actions affect them, the simplest grace we can give them is consideration of our response. It is always the most elegant and skilful thing to do in any situation, it is a standard against which we can judge our action, which is incredibly difficult to do like most simple things. Riding a bike is simple, so is reading, writing and mathematics, with the proviso, once you know how to do
it, with enough practice everyone can do them, you just have to make the choice to do so, and then repeatedly make that choice, because once you have that single habit in place, it enables you to get
better, every interaction then becomes a practice to do better next time, which if you practice enough you will do so, automatically, deliberately practice always makes you better in the long run. Once
you have one habit other habits follow, each triggering the other, reinforcing themselves, but it all starts with a single habit.

Which begs the question, what does consideration of our response look like in slow motion, like a pedestrian crossing, we stop, look and listen. We stopped so that we can observe, we give ourselves time to look
around, see where the cars are, what colours are lights, what is happening on the street and then when we consider that it is safe, we act with certainty and cross the road. This is not something we do naturally as children, we have to be taught, we practice with supervision, and then when we are old enough to do it on our own, we then have to learn why it is a bad idea to do it when you are drunk. And these all the same lessons we have to learn when we are at the point of contact with other people, we have to treat them like
unpredictable cars who ignore the lights and are out of control, because they are all full of people out there who have not taken their driving licence test for being a human being. They deserve more of our attention and awareness than any crossing place on our roads, and yet perversely we pay them less attention.

What happens in most conversations, is that two people take their turns in talking about whatever they are interested in and whilst the other person is talking you are getting ready for your next thing to say. How could
you possibly be ready to consider your response, when you have paid absolutely zero attention to the cars that are passing you by, you have missed what the person in front of you has said, what their body
language actually wants to say and that they are asking for a connection with you. And even if you have, how do you respond, have you put in the time in beforehand to sharpen your axe, do you know what your character is or how you want it to develop, what does a better response look like, have you practised your response, from what position do you want to act, there are infinite number of responses, and just reacting is one of them, but it is not the best, it is merely the default.

Is that how you want to approach the point of contact with others, your default unconsidered response, is that the best axe you have got in your toolbox, and the first stage in taking better action is realising that you have got that toolbox available to you, you have the opportunity to gain experience and acquire knowledge. Which seems to be the overwhelming point of being human, to act with elegance and skilfulness with others and yourself, that is the point of contact that is important to me.