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, July 27, 2022

 Following some years of careful consideration I am gonna make a bold statement 


When a human being accepts a position of authority over even one other person as say a professional; uhh, a short list would be as a teacher, preacher, business executive, lawyer, doctor, or a commissioned artist;  that person better be careful every step of the way. I did that. I know. Listen to your heart’s own question- “Hey, Man, what are they buying from you, really?” 


At some point the answer will come crystal clear. Those are wolves in sheep’s clothing and even they do not know it. They are bidding for my soul. They know something about people. They know that by owning my soul they will pay me hundreds of thousands a year today and make for themselves billions. That is a real unequal bargain. Take the case of a lawyer for example. Slowly but surely that job will become “just how far will you go to keep me?” Same is true for them all. If the person is not at all times clear the result will shock even him or her. You know what I mean.  


You may wonder why I include a commissioned artist in my list, well, it’s because that decision is placing the artist at odds within himself just as is the case with the others on the list. Anyone at odds within himself is going to be confused in the conflict.  It divides the artist in the same way as it divides the judge or the preacher. The person’s intelligence will gradually diminish so long as the conflict within continues. Faulty decisions will pile up. Now, I also want to add that Woody Guthrie is a model for that as an artist.  He refused to be work for the do-re- mi. Just a popular example. Consider: can I work for the dollar and what it represents for me and those I call my family and at the same time work for the singer in the song of my heart? Which is the most reliable employer? It may be an uncomfortable question to someone but that discomfort stems entirely from our conceit.  If anyone can rid himself of conceit then the answer to the question will be clear. All depends upon the level of the human being’s sincere yearning to know whether conceit can be obliterated never to return. That is the real work. Not the defined position of authority over others. Can I be rid of my conceit for good?


I am reminded of an old joke. Once a clever man was very much desiring to sleep with a particular woman. He asked her “would you go to bed with me for a million dollars?” Laughing,  the woman replied,  “I’d think about it; but, no, I would not not!” So, the clever man asked her, “Would you sleep with me for half a million dollars? “No” was her answer. Well then would you do it for say 100,000 dollars? “No.”  “How about fifty dollars then?”  “Are you crazy? Just who do you think you are talking to?”  “LOOK, LADY, WE HAVE ALREADY ESTABLISHED THAT AND WE ARE NOW JUST HAGGLING OVER THE PRICE.”



It boils down to: if a man or woman wakes up in slavery nothing else matters but 

 freedom.

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