A WHOOPER SWAN'S DIARY: 07/05/18

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!

Thursday, July 5, 2018

How I Retired at 45 With No Capital

It was simple. I was considering my situation carefully. I had tried several careers with no feeling I was even close to enjoying my work. Once again I was penniless and out of work. I wondered whether I was just so out of whack that there was no hope for my success as a person. Mostly, I thought of that, success, as being a respected member of some group that had it together enough to feel proud of themselves for what they did that brought sufficient wealth for an enjoyable way of life, materially speaking. Honestly, I did not wish for a lot of wealth, just enough. And it was definitely more important to me to like myself when I looked in the mirror than what car was parked in my drive. Still, I was not drawn to a life of doing without expensive things. That's about as clear as I was thinking at 44. And narrow was my focus. Now, looking back, I admit it, I was stupid. And for sure my vision for some glorious victory was chained down and heavily guarded by what I thought other people thought of me. You can probably feel how little respect I had for my existence as only me without some tribe to give me the formula. Yet, when that did come, as I will reveal, it was irony, complete irony and I laughed out loud, then gave a holler for joy! The tribe was a bunch of total losers, like me, with the wisdom to understand my needs, and the formula, if you call it that, was, hey, be true to you. There were no dues or fees.

My trusted advisers implored me to run a private, very personal experiment and if I did not find what I was looking for they would refund my misery and I could go on my way. What did I have to lose? What, indeed!

Am I religious?

Life is my God.

Love is my God.

Life's love comes on a breath of wind several times every minute of my existence.

I appreciate that when I am aware. Life is in the wind I draw inside of me. To appreciate a breath is the truest, most intimate, sacred expression of the love of one's God. I appreciate my children, I do, and yet when I remember that there is something that allows me to appreciate anything at all I cannot go wrong. To remember my Lord in all things bolsters me up to bear beams of love from that Giver.

Am I religious?

I hope I have not frightened you away with language that might imply I am in some organized religious group. I am not. Am I Religious?

If it is a simple matter of appreciation for unconditional love meant for me alone which love nobody can find to destroy or steal I am.

Since my decision at 45 to run that experiment I have always had work that is gratifying.

Enough and more has been mine by simply getting serious long enough to discover my nature, what makes me tick, and live it. To live, I discovered, absolutely requires a person to be present for life. Now. Keenly aware. And there is no better feeling.

I shall stop here. I want to give enough without meddling in your affairs. It is your life you are living, not mine. Do not believe what I have written above. Find out for yourself or else there is nothing at all to be gained from my small effort.