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!

Sunday, October 10, 2021

 On Or Off


The system is like a bunch of roads you ask permission to walk on.That is the key to finding out you are in the system. The system is enough to make anybody sick. All know it. No argument there. But when you get sick what do you do? You turn to the system that made you sick to fix you. The system breeds crooks. That can make anybody sick. But when the crook strikes what do you do? Turn to the system that made the crook to catch the crook and make things right. The system requires everybody to have a job who is able to work or to starve. But the system sets your pay and provides that you may be fired or laid off. When you are fired what do you do? You turn to the system that fired you to put you back to work for them hoping they won’t fire you this time. How many roads must a woman walk down before you call her a woman? By the way, the wealthiest members of the system are made sick by the system so nobody who walks those roads is exempt from its many troubles. The crooks the system creates are always at work each stealing from weaker thieves than themselves, We sometimes call the troubles arising from the system the Blues. We sing, “Blues stay away from me”.  And others. But what do we do when we get the blues? Right. What else? The system. The system makes its rules for anyone to oppose it. Try it long enough, fighting the system, and you will learn that fighting it is part of the system so even if you were to win your fight you are in the system and it will not change. Wars are part of the system. Economic collapses are a part of it, too. All are planned for by the system. 


A system can be likened to a wheel built by pride. Every baby, including you, started out in a state of complete humility. A part of no system, the babies ask no one for permission to be alive. Humility leads to gifts. Gifts lead to pride. Pride leads to a downfall. Downfalls lead back to humility. That is the wheel. Back at the beginning now. Question. Are you going to ride the wheel again? How many times? It takes no guru to realize that if I choose this time to remain in humility I can  receive gifts by simply staying there, in humility, and avoiding pride. Can I? Of course I can. Will I? Who knows? Would you rather ride the wheel some more?