Regression hurts...Attachment comes in as many forms and disguises as the ego (Pt 1)

So last night, came face to face with many 'me' issues.  Ego - the "I" - of myself surfaced and based on ensuing conversation with my wife, he pops out more often than I realized or might care to admit.

As I've been reading, learning and walking towards my goal of enlightenment, outwardly I'd say things were progressing nicely.  Finding my way along the 8-fold path had it's challenges, especially when circumstances in life created internal contractions between what I thought was the right action/speech/intent and my perceptions of possibly condoning something that was wrong for sake of those whose suffering might be a little less by my continued actions or support.

But after last nights issues, I've spent the morning, the past almost 3 hours, going through the causes and trying to get at the 'why' I felt or reacted as I did.  Self reflection and self denial can run deep it seems.

Main cause of the argument started out with my reaction or pissed-off-ness about conditions in the house due to having quite a lot of cats at the moment.  Anger arising over spraying and subsequent smells in the house, scratched up wood trim and furniture -- pushed my buttons attributed to thoughts that a lot of time, money and effort went into our home and feeling angry that it gets damaged or ruined.

Self-justifiable to me.  My wife brought up 'attachment to things' which as she's aware of my philosophies 'isn't supposed to bother me'.  She's not wrong, but still, it's one of the things that can get under my skin.

Unhappiness with the state of parts of the house/yard are easy to blame on our 4-legged family members, and I went on down the path to conclude that if there weren't so many of them, there would be less house issues and therefore I'd be less bothered.  Again, made logical sense at the time.  But now in the light of day, having put the animals out, and followed one of the cats around outside as he rolled around in the dirt and explored the yard I introspectively began to dig down into my feelings and to try to understand root causes.  Can't work on problem(s) without knowing what they are or where they're hiding.

I've heard it said that still waters run deep - this one perhaps runs deep too, yet at the moment seems simultaneously obvious.

I thinks its partly true that attachment is one piece of the puzzle.  But it's not alone.  I think I've other bigger related issues.  After giving this lots of thought and unraveling the multitude of related issues, I've arrived back near the start of the path towards enlightenment.

2nd Noble Truth:  Life is difficult because of attachment, because we crave satisfaction in ways that are inherently dissatisfying.

Attachment describes the underlining issue in a word, probably along with other similar or related words.  But attachment to something much more complex and intangible than attachment to my house, or my time, or my things, or my inner peace.

My issues arise because of the second part of the 2nd Noble Truth as stated above.  "...because we crave satisfaction in ways that are inherently dissatisfying."  This should have been more obvious had I been more mindful of my thoughts and feelings, but easier and less effort to think that I'm O.K.

Continued.....