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, December 30, 2021

What is a problem? What is its makeup?


A dictionary states it this way:


In everyday language, a problem is a question proposed for solution, a matter stated for examination or proof. In each case, a problem is considered to be a matter which is difficult to solve or settle, a doubtful case, or a complex task involving doubt and uncertainty.


Or, a problem exists when a current situation compared to the ideal situation is unacceptable and must be changed. Problems seem to raise the question ”How can this current situation be made ideal?” Right?


The most urgent matter to be addressed in the case of a problem is to notice that facts actually exist and ideal situations do not exist. It is one thing to deal directly with a fact and an altogether different matter to try to deal with an ideal which does not exist and will always involve conceptual preferences of self interest. Self interest corrupts any attempt at certainty. It is guesswork at best. And guesswork will bring  new problems with any of its attempted solutions. Always there is loss and the problem solver is worse off by trying than just accepting the current situation as fact. Such effort is completely wasted. Wasting energy is foolishness. More to come on that score.


What is going to be revealed next is the most important learning a human being can receive. It relieves one of the futility of an existence in a world of ever increasing problems. And brings peace.


For centuries humans were baffled with a problem of alcoholism. Nothing they tried helped. The poor creatures afflicted by the condition were seemingly beyond aid. They were condemned to a horrible life leading to a pitiful death meanwhile inflicting pain on those who loved them. Then came a miraculous discovery by two drunkards themselves that resulted in the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous. Millions have recovered from a seemingly hopeless condition!



The heart of the Twelve Steps is Number One. It is an admission that the fact is a fact. The admission is no easy matter. Great courage is required to actually mean it when one says “I am powerless to do anything to change my situation.” Hopefully, some who have not faced such a moment can still feel its power in there lives. By the strength of the admission self is removed from the picture long enough for a selfless solution to occur in a flash of insight. A direct flash!  Seeing the fact as it is is all that was ever needed! These men and women never drank alcohol again, not as a punishment or retribution for sin but by an obvious realization that absent self-centered interest which sets humans at odds with each other and nature they had no use whatsoever for alcoholic consumption. Freedom is a fact now for those fortunate ones who can understand the real problem was.…me… and that eliminates the need for problem solving for all time.


My sponsor in AA told me that every morning since he made the admission his first order of business is to humble himself before Truth and admit from his soul that I am going into the world today without sword or shield so if I need defending today in any way, you, are going to have to do it for I am not going to lift a finger in my own defense nor to have my own way.


Do you see the implications of such an attitude? It helped me greatly to recall the meaning of the term”attitude” is derived from the nautical term for the direction of a ship at sea that determines a successful crossing. And I find it humorous indeed that a pair of drunks found the secret to life! There is something about drunks not easily understood by those without the affliction which involves a stubborn refusal to march in lockstep with the crowd that is wasting so much energy solving problems in the interest of self that always create so many more. The great poet William Blake wrote: The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom; for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough.


In my own case, I can say that since I began following my sponsor’s daily attitude I find it is so that one in that posture has no response psychologically whatever to insult or threat. There is simply nothing present to receive them. What happens is in the nature of pure action and that is precisely the same secret discovered by those first two drunks who formed AA. Pure action is quite different from self-centered action or problem solving. It is from a different dimension entirely. It is a fact. Try it for yourself. It will do you no good until it is your truth. There is virtually no power in believing somebody else. Find out.

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