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!

Monday, January 2, 2017


One parent says to its child: You have failed to live up to the taught as proper code of behavior designed to lead you down a straight path of righteousness and you have dishonored my name. Shame on you. You were taught better.

Another says: You have failed to live up to the taught as proper code of behavior designed to lead you down a straight path of righteousness; and, so, I must confess to you, did I fail. Remember, I told you that I had found a way to live on after that failure? Well, it is what I have to offer anyone in your shoes. There is a resource in your soul that you can contact in your hour of misery and ask in your own words for help. I suggest you try that; for in so doing, I came eventually to see my downfall as a singular benefit. It may be so for you. I love you and always will. The paths of righteousness lead invariably to Hell on Earth.

Most will say with force that they know the difference between right and wrong behavior and not one of them know truth. Beauty is truth, truth beauty, as the poet wrote. And it is all we need to know.