"The set of conditions that
constitutes
a situation you are dealing with includes not only what is
ordinarily
thought of as 'the facts', but just as importantly includes the way of
being and
acting
of the people who are involved in the situation and of the people who
are dealing with the situation. In addition, the conditions that
constitute
a situation you are dealing with include what outcomes are seen as
possible, and what
show up
as possible
actions
for realizing those outcomes. The way in which all of the foregoing
occurs for one depends on the
context
one has for that situation."
...
This essay,
Dealing With Life: A Tale Of Two Contexts,
is the sixth in a group of ten on
Context:
I am indebted to
Steve Zaffron
who inspired this conversation, and to Reg Leonard who contributed
material.
You won't get exactly the same answer from everyone - that I promise
you. If you ask people to share the one essential idea they got (ie
they get) from
participating
in
Werner's work,
I'll bet you good
money
their responses are going to cover a wide spectrum.
Transformation,
to be sure, is the ballpark, the general arena in which most of their
shares will occur. But the specifics, the particular distinctions, the
exact ideas and manifestations of the way
transformationshows up
for each person, will assuredly be prioritized differently from person
to person. And there are millions of people who have
participated
in
Werner's work
worldwide.
So if I were to proffer one such distinction from my own experience of
the way
transformationshows up
for me, while it'll probably resonate with many other
graduates
of
Werner's work
and with many people who aren't
graduates
of
Werner's work,
I don't expect all people will necessarily assign it the same value as
I do.
That said, the essential idea I get from
participating
in
Werner's work
is the difference between content (the conditions, the
circumstances, the
what happens
as I'm dealing with life) and
context
(the space in which
what happens,
shows up).
And the truth is before I
participated
in
Werner's work
for the first time, I had no idea there was a difference. Gee! I
didn't even know there was such a distinction as
context,
and I certainly didn't know I had "space" (whatever that meant). What I
did know about ie what I could articulate and distinguish, was the
content (for which I didn't yet have the
word
"content"), the conditions, the circumstances, the
what happens
in my life. What I didn't yet know about ie what I couldn't articulate
and didn't distinguish, was the
context,
the space in which
what happens,
shows up.
At that time I had it that
what happened, happenedto me, and I also had it that I had no say in the matter.
At that time I didn't realize there were other possibilities.
I didn't get it then (but I do get it now) that until I differentiated
between content and
context,
I would be left quite literally powerless over the conditions and
circumstances in my life. Furthermore, I didn't get then that without
distinguishing
context,
all that was available to me was to react to, to
resist,
to try to change, and to improve (which is just another form of
resist
and try to change) the conditions and circumstances in my life. And
trying to do that, I noticed (much to my chagrin, although I never told
the whole truth
about it) was always a losing
battle.
Contrary to what we're thrown to believe, contrary to the hopes and
dreams cherished by our culture (and by most of the cultures on
our planet,
I assume), there's very little power and there's very little
mastery
anyone has over the conditions and circumstances in their life. The
universe just keeps on unfolding as it always does, however it always
does. A life pitted against the universe as it keeps on unfolding as it
always does however it always does, has about as much power over the
conditions and circumstances as the bouncing ball in a penny arcade
bagatellegame.
Even though I got that (which is to say even though I
suspected it), I just couldn't bring myself to admit it.
Be it the truth or not, I cherished the belief that it wasn't
supposed to be that way. To me that justified avoiding confronting
it.
Power and
mastery,
you could say, only became possible for me when I could distinguish
there's a
context
I have for the conditions and circumstances in my life. What's more,
power and
mastery
only became possible for me when I became open to the idea that the
context
I have for the conditions and circumstances, is
created
by me, unlike the conditions and circumstances themselves which
aren't
created
by me.
To venture into the realm of
context
is to venture into the realm of real, profound power (Thank You
Werner).
Once in the realm of
context,
which is to say once in the inquiry into the
possibility of
context,
I started noticing there is, for any set of conditions and
circumstances in my life, not one but twocontexts.
First there's the defaultcontext.
The default
context
is determined by the past, by what I've already
learned about any set of earlier conditions and
circumstances, by what my brain now dictates I should do
in any set of similar conditions and circumstances (an assertion, by
the way, which is now proved by the latest advances and research in
neuroscience). The default
context
determines my interactions with any particular set of conditions and
circumstances, and consequently the way I (predictably, repeatedly,
over and over and over again) deal with them.
Distinguishing the default
context
for any set of conditions and circumstance in my life, was the start of
my taking responsibility for the (predictable) outcomes of the
conditions and circumstances. Once I became willing to be responsible
for the default
context
for any set of conditions and circumstances, it became possible for me
to
create
a new unpredictable discontiguouscontext
for any set of conditions and circumstances. And notice the idea of
creating
a new unpredictable discontiguous
context
for ourselves, isn't far-fetched at all. Isn't
creating
a
context
what we always do? Isn't
creating
a
contextwhat we're really good at doing? Isn't
creating
a
context
what we always did, unknowingly or knowingly, when we
created
the default
context
for any set of conditions and circumstance in our lives, in the first
place?
So this
createdcontext
for any set of conditions and circumstances in my life, is the
secondcontext
for any set of conditions and circumstances. It actually occurs
alongside yet prior to the default
context
for any set of conditions and circumstances. Ergo for any
set of conditions and circumstances I'm dealing with, there's not one
but two
contexts:
the default
context,
and (the possibility of) a new unpredictable discontiguous
createdcontext.
Listen:
more than the default
context
for any set of conditions and circumstances I'm dealing with, the
createdcontext (indeed our
ability at all times in all conditions under all circumstances, to
createanycontext
we choose) is the accessable
source
of our power and
mastery
in dealing with life.
It's really dirt simple. Dealing well with life at the level of content
(conditions and circumstances) is essential if we're going to function
coherently in
the world.
Yet only dealing with life at the level of conditions and
circumstances, is devoid of any responsibility for them and for the way
they
show up
for us. It's also devoid of any real power and
mastery
over them. To develop real power and
mastery
over the conditions and circumstances in life, consider dealing with
life at the level of
context.
Dealing with life at the level of the default
context
is a start: it allows the advent of responsibility and of taking
responsibility for the way conditions and circumstances
show up
in our lives. But it's dealing with life at the level of ie coming
from a freely
created
unpredictable discontiguous
context
for all conditions and circumstances, which is the genesis
of real power,
mastery,
and
leadership
across the board in dealing with life.
Postscript:
The
presentation,
delivery, and style of
Dealing With Life: A Tale Of Two Contexts
are all my own
work.
The ideas
recreated
in
Dealing With Life: A Tale Of Two Contexts
were first
originated,
distinguished, and articulated by
Werner Erhard.