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!

Saturday, June 26, 2021

                                                     A Greater Thing


What can be expected of a civilization of people led by its politicians? I watched a war movie the other day based on an actual war that had taken place. The army that the film was praising had been greatly outnumbered by their foes from the start of the story but were asked to hold out until reinforcements could be sent. Many lives were lost in terrible battles day after day. The heroes at the end were in a hopeless position and knew it but refused an order to retreat. They were asked by their commander, “why not?” His men replied, “We cannot tell you more than this: we will die before we leave here.” It seemed clear these young men had tapped into some truth beyond all words, and, so, beyond all thought, that has to do with the feeling one has for a dead comrade with whom one has struggled together and how great is that feeling. Greater it is than the love for one’s own life. That being said, how much greater a thing it is to follow than a politician and how far apart those two things are. I immediately thought of Muhammed Ali.


When we fail to see that those asking us to kill in their name are the same ones who brought us to a situation where that choice has to be made we are blind, blind in the sense of being ignorant. What can be expected of a civilization of people led by its politicians? Recall the story of the turtle who gave a snake a ride on his back across a river? “What did you expect, I’m a snake, it’s my nature, what else can I say?”

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