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!

Wednesday, April 6, 2022

 




IS AMBITION GOOD FOR HUMANS?



The lack of any ambition at all does not prevent the love of doing. These two are not dependent upon each other. They are entirely separate. In fact, conflict in one’s life is most damaging to health and ambition is a great source of conflict and confusion among people. Actually trying to become prevents freedom.


A wife with ambitions of her own married to a husband who has ambitions of his own will conflict often. It must be so. What is ambition? I want to become. I am not enough now but later I will be. The moment  I set my sights on a goal I set a most terrific limitation that excludes all other possibilities. They say an archer will miss the target until she lets go of any need to strike it for a reward or prize. Neediness blurs the vision. One is nervous. Do not agree with me. Question everything. Find out. It is your life. Ambition is an eight-letter word. What is really written here goes deep and includes every possible action a human will take in a lifetime. Good to know the way that works for you. But you have to do the work necessary to find it. Nobody else can give it to you. A friend knows this about you. 


I want to say a bit more. I did not need to write this. It was in line with my purpose. My purpose is not laid out before me as a plan into the future (which is nonexistent) it is felt now. See, the past and future are in the now. Understand the archery example and grasp the message…the shot is now and the future is now. There is no separation. The shot is a whole work, a part of which, is the role of the eye. It follows that the shooter and target are one. And the purpose is felt now. The most admired performers of any kind are the ones who say I do not do what I do to be rewarded because it calls up the love of doing in all people.


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