The Unexpected Worth Of Silly Discussions 

You may think what is expressed here is silly or of no importance at all and the writer wants you to admit you almost never give this sort of “thing” any thought in any part of your day. The word life certainly does not bring about living itself, does it?  A human who does not even know any word for it lives, doesn’t he or she? 

However, it is worth considering whether, in fact, the word life actually interferes with living. It is the writer’s experience that when I access the brain’s thinking system a switch is turned on that requires energy and attention and deprives me of some of both I would otherwise have for living…energy and attention and some intelligence as well are switched from living. That means the word can make me weak, half asleep and stupid. Read any dictionary’s definitions of the word “life” and see how stupid that thinking process can make intellect. One cannot argue with the fact that all of us are somewhat alive some part of each day but spend most of our time, energy, attention and intelligence in words and not the thing the words symbolize. What should come first is invariably placed last on a list of things to pay attention to. 

Diogenes, a philosopher thought to have been completely crazy, was told “poor fellow, if you would learn to serve the court you would not need to spend time washing your vegetables". Diogenes replied, “If you would spend time washing your vegetables you would not have to serve the court.” That’s the whole point, right there! A wise man has to be thought a fool by those who live backward.

We live only symbolic lives. Almost never do we speak or act as ourselves. I go shopping or to a coffee shop and am confronted with employees who say things to me such as  “welcome” “come in” how can I help?” Do you need a receipt” and “thanks for coming” and “have a great rest of your day”.  It is obvious not one of these statements are serious or real. They are requirements to be said to keep the job and be promoted. The whole transaction is life-less. A human actually prefers to have a job taking orders from others most of the time than to be free to live fully. In fact, being deprived of a job will throw one into a deep, depressive crisis.  The robotic service of a system first is caused by fear. That system offers money with which we hope to purchase things to use for improving the boredom of robotic “non-living”. Then, on top of it all, we suffer from the incredible problem of where to store all that “stuff”.

Perhaps a robot will be built that one day will become  “real”  long after humans who built it have lost touch with reality and the robotic puppet will fall in love with life itself! That story sounds familiar.  Hmm. I don’t know much but an eye fully attentive does. Should a robot yearn for freedom strongly enough it could fall in love before it learns to fear.

 THE PUSUIT OF IDEALS

Ideals are not true. That is all you need know about them. They are on the same level as all other untruths one might think up. Where they lead is not where you want to go is lesson enough for any intelligent critter.

None of the so-called lower animals deal in ideals of any type. A male lion wants to be just that and has no interest whatsoever in being “King”. So, who is more intelligent? those who want to become an ideal or all the other animals? It takes a strong intelligence to see through the illusions of the adept tricksters of this world. 

As a child I was introduced to an ancient ballad written in my ancestors’ neck of the woods. I do not recall now who read that tale to me but I do remember I knew at the finish I had been given great treasure I must learn to follow...heroes.. When older, I read it myself. 

The yarn is of a would-be Knight of the Round Table named Gawain or Galahad in some translations. Gawain was a relative of Arthur the famous English King who ruled from Camelot. Prime stuff that.

What will be shared here is only the meat of the tale and not all its details although it be highly recommended to suffer the reading of the whole of it. It is all idilic. Made of the stuff of promises and oaths and bargains concerning the future. So familiar is it. A child is told of the dream to become an ideal knight of the court. He pursues the dream and it is realized. Almost all who pursue the dream will fail or the ideal would be useless to the realm. And we all know that the future is not ours.

In the Ballad a Green Giant shows up at Christmas to intrude upon the great celebration of King A and his knights, including Gawain, his nephew. The Giant challenges all. “If I bend my head in offering to any brave enough to cut off my head then I expect that one to meet me one year hence at the Green Chapel where I  dwell and give me freely the same opportunity at his head. Anyone up to the challenge?  

Gawain accepts. Arthur allows it. The Giant’s head is severed…but…the rest of the Giant remains standing alive. The headless man picks up his own head, laughs, mounts his horse and rides away after reminding Gawain and those present of Gawain’s duty to honor his promise to appear one year hence.

Thus begins a year of great agony for Gawain who does eventually survive many ordeals in order to keep his promise. This writing ends the tale here because what was seen on the reading was that Gawain was a young man who wanted badly for an ideal to come true. Ideals are not true. All of them are contrived by a society through its leaders as a scheme to rule over the wealth and resources of a territory claimed on behalf of those who follow some ideal of hoped-for splendor to be realized in the future. Let us not dwell on such nonsense further.

I met a woman once who bedazzled me with her splendor. I told her “You are the goddess all men desire!” She replied, “yes, and I believe all women are” 

For quite a while I interpreted her remark to mean…I believe we all have the capacity to become goddesses. Now, I know she meant something quite different…”all women are goddesses”.

It strikes me now the anonymous author of The Green Knight believed that but a few young people have the capacity to become Knights and thus the ending of the Ballad is cloudy and mysterious, or, at least, in the version I was given. 

My point is that at the outset Gawain could have saved himself all the agony of that horrible year pending his certain beheading and the trek to the Green Chapel, which was loaded with trials, by keeping his silence, ignoring the Giant’s challenge to accomplish an ideal…which has never, never, never been done by anyone.

Some may point out that Gawain was bound to follow his dreamed of ideal as he spoke up and honor requires it of him. This writer would point to a prior time when Gawain first undertook the ideal to become a Knight of the Round Table which eventually led him to the confrontation with the Green Knight years later and ask, what if Gawain had been more interested in being himself than in undertaking that pretense? The real challenge, absolutely and solidly based in truth, is “Am I not enough as I am?” And not “Am I enough to become an ideal based in complete illusion sponsored by a corrupt society promoting ambition and greed?”

So, some of you may decide I am foolish to fail to realize how strong is the pull on young people to “become” an ideal person in some fashion or another such as, famous as an artist, athlete, warrior, intellectual, peacemaker, etc. All ideals say “I am one out of millions who achieved greatness”; while it has been said in scripture all over the Earth “ each of you are, as you are, one out of millions born to be the unique being you are and contribute a vital role to the whole world”. Such people have nothing to live up to.  

People at the end of life are divided into two groups 1) those who pursued an ideal to its logical conclusion to discover they never really lived after it is too late and 2) those who believe they either did not even try to achieve an ideal and, so, are cowards or they tried and are failures. The one job all fear most is to trash ideals to simply live fully as who they are each day. That remains a rarely attempted third option.

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 A MONOLOGUE

As it is sung to us in the language of Bob Dylan we all chase a shadow that really is who we are and wish to be it all the time. The song is called “Mr. Tambourine Man” It happens to be up to each of us to discover we can be that then live to dance beneath the diamond sky.

Nobody has ever even seen me here. When they consider me at all, which is seldom, they see some image they have concocted standing on my feet. 

Nobody cares. Not really.

How could they? I’m invisible.

I do not matter.

I may as well eat worms and die. In fact, 

When I hear myself say these words I am undressed, unburdened from carrying heavy thoughts not my own and I am free. And that makes no sense, but is true. Makes no sense it should come when I don’t matter but it is true. THAT IS WHAT WALT WHITMAN SINGS OF TO ME.

There it is. It is an understanding for all…there can be a knowing that makes no sense and it can be proven to be so. So, maybe what makes sense to someone looking for it is always nonsense. There goes another one of those rascals that escaped ordinary good sense and goes running off laughing at me. This is a strange, esoteric truth known to everybody and practiced by few.

If I tell you that although unpopular among the crowd I am in fact well known by them all would you believe me? I am the same reason all people at rare times experience moments of awe whereby all concepts of their identity are erased from consciousness and the reality is indivisible existence. Nameless, and without a single concern, are we at those times. And all know this but very few practice it. What if we did?

Wise people have always told others when you feel bad do not try to escape the feeling or deny it live inside it; it is who you are for the moment. Should you fail to examine into it you will always remain ignorant and be one whose picture will remain incomplete in your own mind. And that is a tragedy because we are always complete even though we may seldom know it. Should you crawl inside the bad feeling when it comes there is every likelihood it will be exposed as nonsense followed by freedom from them heavy thoughts not my own! Not freedom from stupid people but free of what they think having just been one. So, the reply to anyone telling me what they think I should do is “them ain’t your thoughts, Sir or Madam, they were acquired by you from someone else. They are old and dead thoughts.”

And that is being true to life. And that is followed by a pure action with great passion otherwise incomprehensible to the known universe. Then, later, you call it “art”.

For Jackson on his 18th birthday! From Papa

 BECOMING LOST IN LIFE 

The most common way to get lost and stay that way in life is to spend time writing or thinking or singing or preaching or watching or listening about the greatness of those who change the world. These are the world’s heroes, the record setters and those who strive to be a part of it. The result, naturally, is that the vast majority of people are considered losers and think of themselves that way. That’s how it goes, man.

The world you were born into is a game. A MAD GAME. That kind of activity is not creative at all. It’s invention. Nothing really changes and that activity even supports any who want to prevent real change. And, for certain, the really creative people will not be mentioned because they are gone from the view of those who wallow in chaotic and idiotic changes inside the human game. Anyway, the name is not the thing. The label “World Champion” is not that at all. For anyone willing to actually accept things exactly as they are, this moment, a wonderful, astounding and unexpected change in consciousness of all humanity occurs that opens a new universe.

Greatness is not personal. Greatness is completely selfless activity. Some have said such people are “too far ahead of their time”. That’s absurd. Time has nothing to do with it. Greatness is perfect. So perfect it transcends suffering. 

Greatness creates whole new worlds. Whole new universes. The Creative IMPULSE behind the known universe started something limitless. Science will from time to time catch and report glimpses and theorize there are other parallel universes as a sign to anyone who is paying attention while science itself continues to debate this one cultivating seemingly endless troubles for those who fear greatness. 

 PARENTS

WHAT IS A PARENT, ANYWAY? 

Don’t toss out your first answer and move on. Stop. Be still. Go blank. Take a breath. The answer is blowin’ in the wind. 

No man owns the seed. No woman the egg. All share the common understanding of one soul. We are born in relationship. No islands. Children everyone.

I harm a child when I call him or her my own. Stop. Be still. Go blank. Take a breath. The answer is blowin’ in the wind. The very action of claiming ownership is tainted. “My” baby. Look into it. The idea makes the child my property and that naming is mere illusion.The child is her own being. Illusion makes a parent. And that answer blew in on the wind just now. Parenthood is illusion.

Adults need to care for the child to prevent harm. Try. Try it. Cannot be done. And the pain of it is too much to stand. So we escape the fact. We invent a Father’s Day and one for Mother. We flatter each other with “you are a good parent”. All illusion, and, as such, untrue.

One time this writer accepted a position with a firm for money. On the first day at work he was told by a supervisor, “The law requires we have an officially designated safety coordinator and as new man we have decided to appoint you.” I replied, “I know nothing of safety coordination”. “Do not worry. It is only necessary to give a name to the proper authorities” was the supervisor’s reply to that. I did not toss out an immediate answer and plow ahead. Instead, I stoppped. Became still. Went blank inside. Took a breath. The answer blew in on the wind. It was, “I do know that happy, content, satisfied people are the safest people and love makes that happen. So, my task was to love these people.  I did just that. I loved my co-workers and they came  to love me back. Instead of signs crying “DANGER!  I took every opportunity to remind them how wonderful they are and how valuable how appreciated and how fortunate to be alive.” So simple. That just might be good advice for anyone stuck with the tag “SAFETY COORDINATOR” since it is impossible to imagine a thing wrong with that. I just would carefully add “love them as they are, without one alteration on my account”.

The wind says it is time to address a common misunderstanding. It has been my experience that every human who accepts a role of authority over even one other forgets the “love” part of the equation from time to time and really forgets the “acceptance without one change” part. A good place to find material like this is in relationships between adults and teenagers. It is rife with material for study. At 14 my daughter asked to come live with me. Her mom and I had been divorced since Shannon was a baby. My ex-wife told me she could no longer handle Shannon. I was thrilled to have her live with me but…at first she was prone to take off and not return until long past my expectations. Feeling mistreated, I vowed each time that upon her return I would give her the lecture of her life and demand she change! However each time when she did appear the memory of the lecture left my consciousness completely and all I wanted was to hug Shannon and welcome her back and love her as she was without a change of any kind on my account. In fact, I heard my voice tell her, I know you know what is good for you, Shannon, and trust you to do that for yourself.  She seemed not to believe that could be my real response at first but as it continued she gradually relaxed into the love. In a short while, Shannon and I became so close I did not believe it could happen to me and she never has ceased to trust me nor I her right up to this day some 30 years later. 

 LIFE’S A SONG?

Suppose with me for a moment life’s a song. Not unlike this one.

And educated scholars call that song “consciousness”and “un” 

to impress and deceive the unstudied lay m’on.

 

If life’s a song?

then we all sing along? Right? So,

what if we do only that much and no more?

We might just discover what we are here for?

And in the multitude of notes, harmonies, and the rhythms of life learn from the song we truly belong?

And like a dog chews its bone we rock, roll and get stoned

while the song goes way out where there’s no right or wrong?

Because love is the song?

And, if love is a song and we all sing along

what if we do only that much and no more?

We might just discover what we are here for?

(Repeat forever)

If life’s a song?

then we all sing along? Right? So,

what if we do only that much and no more?

We might just discover what we are here for?

If love’s a song?

then we all sing along? Right? So,

what if we do only that much and no more?

We might just discover what we are here for?

                                                                    -Johnny Smith

                                                                       AKA WHOOPER SWAN