Unlike oysters, we do have choice of r "intake." Do we feed r minds with CURRENT trends offered by the film industry -- movies propagating terror, terrorism or fear of years? Do we feed on CURRENT events described by the media -- pointless shootings, incessant violence, war, greed and dis-ease? These streams of conflictual consciousness from outside rselves irritate r essence much like the dirt particle affects the oyster.

What we take in thru r senses stays with us. If we observe an act of love, that love permeates r own being and grows within us, manifesting itself at the perfect moment. If acts of hatred, violence and degradation r what we take in 4 "entertainment," these unnatural irritants grow beneath r "shells", caught within r fibers of xistence. The irritants will continue 2 xpand and infect r wellbeing, sometimes with drastic results. A child who shoots others at school without knowing y certainly has something other than peace beneath his 'shell.' Same with the many senior citizens who swallowed fear from streams of tv news, trapping themselves inside their homes with bars on the windows, fearful 4 their lives.

As with oysters, sometimes an outside 4ce is intentionally feeding these 'irritants' 2 the unknowing participant. With the oyster, the irritant grows in2 a pearl. Someone gets rich at harvest time, at the oyster's xpense. Is it any mistake that children will fight one another 2 get the latest 'popular' toys, or that some teens value shoes or a jacket more than another's life? Someone is profitting from this 'gotta get stuff' attitude. Ask the millionaire marketing geniuses in charge of commercial programming.