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!

Friday, June 24, 2022

 CAN I BE THE LEGEND OF MY LIFE?


Perhaps the only thing you and I can agree upon without a reservation is the fact we are both alive now. I live as I write. You live as you read this. Do you know how to waste a life? You should. I will tell you. It is to spend it in a practice that is supposed to  lead you to a certain goal or dream of yours. Call it peace or enlightenment or contentment or true love or salvation or total security or a championship or retirement or whatever you like. To do that is to trick yourself out of a life. I listened to some folks talk awhile about the legendary outlaw Billy the Kid. All of them admired the Kid and most were convincing in stating “there was something about him I can relate to in me” but none could say what that was with the slightest degree of certainty. I have studied the Kid’s life and as I listened I felt what in me those people were trying without success to express about him. They ended pretty much all saying “well it’s what a legend is all about and we make a legend of him” then love him, adore him even. What is a legend? It never dies. It lives on and keeps on affecting people long after the death of the person who became the legend. Right? I suggest to you a legend is the truth about who we, you and I, are but deny. Is it not an obvious fact that as long as I deny who I am I cannot claim to be living? Look closely into that. And into the fact that who I am not is living my life. Billy the Kid it is told died quite young but he lived a life however short or long. Measurement or comparison is absolute nonsense here. Did I live? That is the question. 


Mother Teresa, Rumi, Robin Hood are some other legendary names. All religions trace from a legendary figure. Why are we so drawn to a legendary life? If I wasted my own better to worship someone who did not than live with the pain of such denial? Can you hear everyone of those legends we have made saying to us right this minute:  “Do not count on me. Save yourself. I did. The world needs you now!” 


It is about a ceasing, not about practice. Stop saying “I believe in blah, blah, blah.” Ask instead, “Can I cease wasting my life and live it?” It takes a lot of courage to do that. A certain intensity is required.





Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)