"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level
of thinking we were at when we created them."
... Professor Albert Einstein
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
different results."
... Rita Mae Brown (widely attributed erroneously to Professor
Albert Einstein)
I am indebted to Anna Taglieri who contributed material for this
conversation.
"Will ... we ... survive?".
That poignant question takes many forms. Whether we recognize it or
not, whether we admit it or not, it's on everyone's lips, leaning in
from the background onto and into everything we do. It's directed at
planetary issues (climate change, global warming, pandemics), political
issues (democracy,
telling the truth),
personal issues
(finances,
health).
When the question is asked in any of its many forms about any of our
concerns, the outcome mostly doesn't look good: if climate change
continues unabated, it won't go well for the planet; if political
out-integrity continues unabated, we won't have a world
based on fact and
truth
anymore; if societal divides continue unchecked, poverty and
hunger
(and thirst) will emerge as de facto conditions.
For centuries, we've been trying to change all of the above - and
clearly we've not succeeded (indeed, to call a spade a spade, we've
failed). For centuries, we've
prayed
about them and begged for divine intervention, and there's been no
divine intervention
(I'm sorry:
the cavalry's not
coming!).
We know that "party first" isn't as powerful as
"people first". Yet we've not
demonstrated
much will in implementing our vision (strangely, we've
demonstrated
the will to implement the opposite).
It doesn't look like things are going well. And the "Will we survive?"
question is now beyond a planetary, political, and individual question.
It's now apropos the future of our species. But look: don't we assume
the answer to "Will we survive?" should be "Yes!", or (at
least) "We hope so ..."? And if the answer is "No", it's either
unconfrontable or assumed to be overly negative and therefore
avoided.
Here's the challenge: dare ... we ...
confront ... that it only turns out the way it turns out,
and not the way we hope it will turn out, and not the way
it should turn out, and not the way we'd like
it to turn out, and not even the way we try to make it
turn out? Dare we confront that
this
(ie
this
- exactly the way it is, and exactly the way it isn't) is the way it
turned out in spite of all of our best intentions, hopes,
and
prayers?
(it's obvious if you don't lie about it:
thisis the way it turned out, yes?). It's been turning out the
way it turns out, for eons. It'll continue turning out the way it turns
out, for eons to come.
If all that's so (and all the blindingly obvious evidence does point to
that it is), it leaves us confronting the looming reality: that who
we've been being, is insufficient to the tasks at hand. As the
contemplators of the question "Will we survive?", we've been
insufficient. We've been its
victim.
We've addressed it inadequately with blame and
finger-pointing.
Yet even having done all that, we've still not considered that the
frantic question itself, is asked just as automatically as
the
inexorably
turning-out planetary, political, and individual forces themselves
which render life as we know it, as not the way we say it's s'posed
to be (and isn't that what we say?).
If it's indeed true that
this
is the way it's turned out and, in spite of all our best efforts and
prayers
to the contrary, we've not made a damn bit of difference
in having it turn out any other way (which pessimists say is getting
worse, and optimists say is getting better), what's the possibility of
being humanin the face of
such a looming realization?
The possibility of
being humanin the face of
this looming realization, is the possibility of sharing transformation,
the possibility of sharing being the
context
in which everything turns out, and in which the question
"Will we survive?" occurs. There's something to realize which makes
this a pivotal share, a
breakthrough
actually, and not just some do-gooder bon mot: it's the
realization that it turns out the way it turns out whether I share
transformation, or not. If I share transformation, it won't make
any difference: it'll turn out the way it turns out anyway. If I
don't share transformation, it won't make any difference:
it'll turn out the way it turns out anyway. "But Laurence ..." you say,
"then sharing transformation doesn't make any difference, does
it? (at least, it sounds like that's what you're saying ...).".
It's an enormous
paradox,
the
cosmic joke
if you will: if I share transformation
in the face of"It doesn't make any difference if I share transformation, or
not", it actually makes a profound difference. Look:
that doesn't fit into our
categories.
You can't get it intellectually (you'll only make it wrong
intellectually). You will however get it powerfully if you take a stand
for who you really are, re-cast the frantic world
out-here
as what's so, and
in the face of it,
share who you really are. In other
words,
sharing transformation, which makes no difference (because things turn
out the way they turn out anyway), makes a difference!
That, by the way, isn't an original idea of mine. It's
vintage Erhard.
It's as
paradoxical
as it's
brilliant.
It's breathtakingly
marvelous.
It's
very Zen,
and it'll drive you crazy (and may even make you frantic) if you try to
figure it out.