THE STORY OF JOHNNY WHOOPER SWAN We go to school trusting our parents. We meet a teacher there who stands up front with a big desk, and a pointer. She or he trains us in an authoritative manner. We attach mentally to a life long need for authority in order to live lives successfully. Right so far? In my case, at the age of 25 I was ready to enter the practice of law where I hoped for success and a happy life finally. Very shortly, very shortly, I became anxious. There was a foreboding. I was made more uncomfortable with each experience. Law work is nothing like what I was told it would be. The system is corrupt. But I still cling to my expectation that career success is necessary to my happiness as a man. Each day my grasp of what the fuck success amounts to after all becomes more clouded, murkier. I hear songs on the airwaves and at concerts which describe my life as the life of a fool. What am I becoming? I want to rip off my business suit to run naked in the street with my hair on fire! But I am too afraid. In strange, weird (weird comes from a word meaning wise), fragmented steps I go about a journey of my own believing myself to be the first man to have failed in such a total way which journey works so as to break up my career, end a marriage, and start an entirely new way of relating with my two children whom I love deeply. Almost magically I meet a woman who is a career counselor who asserts a beautiful message that I am made to be joyful in my work everyday and at all levels. This understanding sets me on a completely new course. It is no longer a world of systems to me but an undivided one of unlimited beauty. It reminds me of a painting. A true masterpiece. I am drawn from within to learn the truth about my identity and nobody else can teach me that. From this point onward I will use thinking capacity for mastering mechanical processes and follow my heart, which includes my whole nature, which includes your whole nature and that of every human being for all the rest. I’ll go by the name Johnny Whooper Swan who does not explain itself to anyone. By my fruits shall I be known. Watch me soar!

Friday, September 23, 2016

How It Began


This morning I rediscovered how it began, in a word, within. That is the message.  Within you is your happiness, not outside of you. Nothing causes happiness.  Happiness is a cause. When a person finds this to be so that person feels rescued, like a drowning man, it is done. All these educated Phd's study what to do to be happy, healthy, satisfied, content (all the same condition) and recommend this and that regime. People flock to read and follow.  Still, we remain in misery much of the time. They are on the wrong track.

They are stupid.  That's correct.  They are stupid. To educate a bright person to become stupid is very expensive these days.  What a waste. Why do we do it then? Educators are stupid. (Actually, they were once bright but now they teach what they know to be stupid to students in order to hold a job and get promoted and receive benefits that they believe they must have to be happy and are seldom found to be so.)

I was educated for nineteen years. I was a doctor.

I was stupid.  I tried to fix people, correct them, as I was taught to do. How foolish!

Then I just gave up in dismay at how little effect my work had on the situation I found around me. Powerless to be of any real help to anyone, including myself, I asked someone who seemed happy if he could help me find happiness. He agreed and simply told me the happiness you seek is inside you now.  What you want you have never been without since birth. I thought he was cracked in the head. But something inside me disagreed. It was a small wave of excitement that I interpreted to mean, He's right. 

I began to take notice when that small wave of excited pleasure was present.  I realized it grew over time as I paid attention to it. When it reached a certain level I noticed I was consumed in its radiance and delighted in the simplest of experiences. It turns out that small wave was the slender reed of the joy I was missing in my life. Nurtured, it became strong. Strong enough that at a point I decided to make it the centerpiece of my existence. You see, I had had it all along.

I write this to tell one more thing.  When a man or woman is truly happy without regard to present circumstances present circumstances are somehow magically persuaded to alter themselves in a way that suits that individual to a tee. See?

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