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, November 5, 2020

 FINE DAY!


Billy:  Fine day!

First: Billy, what do you like to do on a fine day like this one?

Billy: Shoot my pistol at targets.

Second: What targets you like to shoot?

Billy: Lily-livered Governors make good targets.

Third: What’s another target, Bill?

Billy: Oh, I guess it’s fun to shoot empty pop bottles.

Fourth: Who do you like to shoot with best?

Billy: I prefer my own company when shootin’. 

Fifth: When you’re older what do you want to do most?

Billy: Shut up!

Fifth: What? Why do you say that?

Billy: Don’t ask. Just shut up, won’t you?

First: That’s no way to be. We’re just interested in things you like to do. What’s wrong with that?

Billy: Holy shit! Shut up!

Second: No need to get so upset like that.

Billy: There’s every need! Nothing is as sacred. Gadammit. I do not want to speak about what I want. I do not want to spend time that way. I know where it takes a fellow. 

Third: Where does it take you?

Billy: Livin’ Hell. That’s where. I wanna spend my time in the company of this one fine day. Free from the 10,000 worries of tomorrow…which never comes by the way.

Fourth: But can’t we spend some of today thinkin’ and talkin’ about what we would like to have? That’s only natural, ain’t it?

Billy:  You just don’t git it, do ya? Shut up! Simple. Know what I mean? Just shut up.

Fifth: I don’t git it.

Billy: At least that’s not another damn question. It’s an admission.You don’t git it. Ya don’t git it because you are stuck in what is not natural. I never met a man who was happy because he got what he wanted. 

Fifth: I git it.(laughter) It’s like let tomorrow take care of itself.

Billy: Only in that way is your time gonna be made of real stuff. Another thing. The practice of imagining what you want is so habituatin’. Before long, at a time you are unaware, it captures you in a tangled web you cannot escape ever except by a very difficult amount of tortuous trouble. Most people are not alive at all.  Only wish things were different. I want nothing. 

First: I don’t either. 

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