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, June 17, 2021

 To those who have not the eyes to see how young I am I may appear to them to be old. I am so young in fact that I awaken every morning in a state of infancy. Each of my days is a new life to live. I know not what to expect so find myself empty of ideas. Back when I was older, I carried many ideas about where I came from, where I am going, how I am going to get there, and what happens after I die. It took a lot of luggage to hold all the stuff and wore me out. Now, I intuit, see, all those questions will be answered today before I sleep and I will awaken tomorrow to live again. Tomorrow, after all, comes only as today. That I can depend upon. Some days it seems my body is aging and wearing out. But other days it is as though my body is as vibrant as ever it has been. It is not the same as the body I had, say, seven years ago, but just as alert and adequate to my day. Eager and ready. 




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