A WHOOPER SWAN'S DIARY: 06/01/23

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!

Thursday, June 1, 2023

SENILITY

At a young age, whatever that means, Bob Dylan wrote and sang a lyric that really surprises and delights humans. “Ahh, but, I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now”.

Recently, I heard a man in his eighties speak who asked an audience, “what is senility?”. “Who is senile?” “Is it only the elderly?” “Is it begun about 30 or 40 or so?” Does it begin about 5 or 6 when a child goes to school? Does it have to do with the development of a repetitive, dull, routine life until it pervades a person in all aspects? Is it creepy? Same work day after day. Same drive home and back. Same sex pattern. Same opinions. Same discussions. Same activities. Same thoughts. Same addictions. Same complaints. And so on? Is it when you begin to know what everybody is going to say? Same fears. Few if any surprises. Nothing new. Lack of creativity?

Could it be we could, instead, grow younger? Even to the point we defy age? Could we be brand new every morning? Does it interest you? It does me.