Kenzo Estate, Monticello Road, Napa Valley, California, USA
August 13, 2021
"Lots of people have talked about taking that step into the unknown.
Taking that step into the unknown is actually a lot less courageous
than taking a step from the unknown."
...
"Choose a problem that's worth your time. World hunger is worth your
time. Making a million dollars isn't."
... Sandra "Sandy" Bernasek (1951 - 2018),
Landmark Forum
Leader,
quoted by the Pittsburgh City Paper
"If the only
prayer
you ever say in your entire life is 'Thank You!', it will be enough."
... Meister Eckhart
This essay,
Full Self-Expression: Demonstration II,
is the fourth in a sextet conceived during my second sabbatical:
Look: it turns out the way it turns out. And it's never turned out any
other way, other than the way it turned out. Not once, not ever. The
starting point for living life transformed, is to get it the way it is
(and the way it isn't) with nothing added, and with nothing taken away.
If you don't get it that way, it's a pretty miserable,
frantic
existence. If you do, it's all perfect. No kidding! Look: that's not
trivial. It's
high stakes.
But it's not significant. Making it significant is just more arrogance.
In the light of this, I've discovered (when I tell the truth about it)
that nothing I do makes any difference. Really. It turns out the way it
turns out anyway - no matter what I do (or don't do). No, that's not
fatalism. And no, it's not some kind of pre-determination /
pre-destination either. And it doesn't require karma to
conceptualize it tritely. But it is unmistakable and (depending on your
willingness to confront the obvious rather than the known / the thrown)
inarguable. Things turn out the way they turn out. And they've never
turned out any other way. Not once. Not ever. Even if
that doesn't fit into your
categories,
it's the truth. Stop lying about it.
Bringing forth who we really are -
in the face of
it turns out the way it turns out anyway - is possibly the only action
we can initiate that makes any lasting difference at all. But watch: if
none of what we do makes any difference, since it turns out the way it
turns out anyway, then it's a
paradox,
a kind of a
cosmic joke
(if you will) played on us, that bringing forth who we really are, in
the face of it doesn't make a difference, makes a difference.
You may not get this rationally, cerebrally, or intellectually: in the
face of nothing makes a difference, bringing forth who we really are
makes a difference. It will drive you crazy if you try to figure
it out.
Our world,
and the ongoing play of life in it, comprises people. I wonder: if you
and I don't know who we really are (and consequently have no
access
to bringing forth who we really are), what does that say for
our world,
and for the ongoing play of life in it, comprised as it is by people
who (mostly) don't know who they really are? It's a disconcerting
predicament to be in, one which (for the most part) we don't question
or challenge, relegating us to a kind of feeling our way around in
the dark way of living, a way of living that's bolted in
place by what the venerable
Alan Watts
distinguished as "the taboo against knowing who you (we) are".
I'm a big fan of
Alan,
who he is, the stand he is, the books he's written, the
talks he's given. I've visited
his houseboat.
Yet I've not met him personally. So it was in
being around Werner
in
the Franklin House
that this other possibility for being (indeed, this entirely new
possibility for being in
the world)
became apparent.
Werner
is always, always two things: one,
in action,
and two, fully Self-expressed. Both. Always. Being fully Self-expressed
(that's "Self" with a capital "S") in the face of it turns out the way
it turns out anyway, is arguably the one actionable ability we human
beings have which makes any difference at all.
Make a million dollars? Makes no difference. Not really. Fly into
space? Makes no difference. Not really. Develop a new social media app?
Makes no difference. Not really. Discover who we really are, be who we
really are, and bring that forth in all our actions, as our natural
Self-expression? Makes a difference. Makes a profound, enormous,
enduring difference. Alters the very fabric of Life as we know it.
That's
Werner's
demonstration
(as
Professor William Warren
"Bill" Bartley III,
Werner's
official biographer, may have said). Arguably it's that demonstration
of always full Self-expression and
always in action,
which validates all the abstracts and ideas in the rich body of
distinctions that is "transformation", not the other way around.
