A WHOOPER SWAN'S DIARY: June 2017

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!

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Stories-

(Even the Best, Are Not good For You)

I want to complain of the basic idea that stories are good for people. Stories do not imitate a life.

Always they distort. How many times have you heard the phrase It's only a story? We try to teach and to learn about life through them. Telling. Listening. Getting a message. Swearing, I shall apply its message to my own life. The story which reveals to you that you are not going to be able to tell a story that will save you is the only one that can help. For, you see, a story is drawn from a hole in the mind and is listened to by that part of a listener's mind which is the part that creates problems in the first place. A mind can be a troublesome thing. By telling stories, it appears to be solving the problems it caused. Actually, it is increasing their numbers rapidly like flies or rabbits. Even the Great Sherlock was acting so. You do not even learn from your own experience much less the experience of others! Stories have been used by Masters for ages as instruments telling only of how easily your are tricked...again and again the same trick. You see that and continue to be tricked by it. You pay your money then you bow before idols all in exchange for the trick.

You have a murder on your hands. What is to be done? Pin it on somebody and murder them. That will teach people not to murder. Shortcuts? Convenience? Surely, a path to foolish behavior is not to be praised as a shortcut just because it offers convenience.

It seems we love stories we tell and retell and nothing good is gained from them. Stories work like liars when they lead you to believe in them. Stories have a beginning, middle, and end. They work out. There's a point. There's a mile-marker. Life is nothing like a story. Life happens. Life never misses a beat. It runs away from you while you busy yourself trying to make sense of it. What are you trying to accomplish? Life is here and it is overwhelming you for the love of excited enthusiasm. You cannot overwhelm it. MAKE A FRIEND OF IT. A man says I will accept life when it makes sense to me. One should say, life makes sense to me when I accept it. (Not the story, life.)

Stories are distractions from life. As such, they are highly valued by those who are upset and depressed. Knowing this, stories are highly valued by those who would make a buck or two from the downhearted and gain a following of fools. There are so many so desperate for a fix. So, life contains stories because so many are afraid to live. It is the substitute of choice. A good story puts you to sleep. It would be better for you to be upset.

Imagine telling a story about the ocean to explain it to someone. Rather take them to the beach. And wait. In silence. Let the ocean speak in its language to the one who would know about it.

That brings us straight to the point to be made: the presence holds the key to my real life. It may feel like a shadow friend to an authentic self. Make its introduction. Present your self to it. Initiate a true bond of lasting friendship; something bold and unknown. Initiate obedience to life. Transcend the envelope of story. Leave all heroes behind.