A WHOOPER SWAN'S DIARY: 03/14/22

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!

Monday, March 14, 2022

WHICH POWER?

There is a certain power in two people who meet and one is trying to convince the other he has something to offer which will benefit the selfish interest of the other. The other hears his words and agrees or disagrees. When they agree a contract is accomplished. That is a form of power. It is business power. There is another form however. It is a power which comes when one party offers the other nothing but speaks for doing what is right to do in consideration of the whole picture, like a Bob Dylan song, for example. When agreement is the result, this second power is vastly more powerful than the former. Why is that so? It is because the parties together have brought the agreement into being. In the first agreement the two remained separated throughout and remain so after the agreement is accomplished…separated. Neither party will support the agreement wholeheartedly. Like every peace treaty ever made is so quickly abandoned. However, in the second example both will support what they have done together, will be now united as one, and that commitment is unbelievably strong, strong to the point of death! Some element called passion has been forged as a part of their friendship. Passion is an essential ingredient in human life. Without it, the mind grows dull, mechanical, repetitive, and in such boredom will consider all manner of unhealthy ways to feel better; such as, killing anyone who does not think in the same way, wear the correct clothing, has a different color skin, practices a different religion, follows a different political philosophy, has more money and property or threatens to take away some of mine, etc. etc. etc.

So, which power is it to be?