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 17, 2021


A  LAZY MIND


 I heard it said, “Understanding makes the mind lazy.” I felt immediately free. From now on I want to avoid the use of the term “understand” and enjoy freedom. In a dimension of freedom from understanding or even the wish to understand may be the only intelligent place. From the outset, the word understand seems nonsensical. It would seem to encourage one to cease motion. It carries a sense that one sees something from a particular point of view and that seems unintelligent indeed! One suspects a claim to understanding has been preceded by making a judgment and taking an inflexible position about a matter that will  prevent motion and soon may become rote and lazy, preventing learning. 


Schools of thought teach one by a system of memorization and repetition. The goal is not that the student be wise or learned but that he conform to a certain way of thinking. 


One who understands me is someone whose company I wish to avoid. That includes me. So, this leads me to see that to truly understand is to question everything. This reminds me of the saying "one can never cross the same river twice”. Let me remain open.