"On the surface of it, what we're
celebrating
today is our independence as a nation. This independence lives in
symbols
like the flag, hot dogs, apple pie, fireworks etc.
But if you look closer, you'll see your independence like an
experience / like a possibility, which is more than
symbols,
and isn't only
celebrated
for just one day each year. Rather it's a vibrant
24 / 7 / 365
ongoing intentional creation of your humanity, living in the impact
you make on
the world
now, and the legacy you'll leave for its future generations.
So with the
symbols
of independence distinguished from the experience / possibility of
independence, Happy 4th of July!
I am indebted to Clare Erhard-Trick who contributed material for this
conversation.
It's the Fourth of July. Naturally enough, we're all talking about
independence, and the profound freedom that comes with true
independence ie with being truly independent. When we're truly
independent, we're truly free
(just like the front and the
back of the hand, they're distinct yet inseparable).
Yet even when we're truly independent, we're still not free to do
anything we want to anyone or anything regardless of the consequences.
There are laws against it.
But look: it's only secondarily that we're not free to do anything we
want to anyone and anything, because of laws. What it's because of, is
something way more profound than that. Primarily it's because given the
interwoven interdependence of all aspects of all of our lives, the
consequences of what we do to anyone and anything, are also wrought on
ourselves.
I'm sorry,
but there's just no way of ducking out of that. It's a simple function
of who we all really are.
Living as if we're not interwoven with and interdependent on all
aspects of life, is simple crass naïveté. Yet each of us
are designed to seek dominance and avoid being dominated, to be right
and avoid being wrong, to win and avoid losing. It's as if our
very base
nature
is at odds with our interwoven-ness with and interdependence on all
aspects of life. In this
paradigm,
there's no possibility we'll ever be independent or free (the
paradigm
we're run by, prohibits it).
Now enter from stage left to stage
front and center,
the possibility of transformation, real transformation, genuine
transformation, authentic tranformation. Be still, undistracted, like
a monk
in a cave, and consider the possibility of us all being interwoven with
and interdependent on all of it, with no possibility of it
ever working out for everyone and anything as long as who
we're still being is dominating and avoiding being dominated, being
right and avoiding being wrong, winning and avoiding losing. It will
never work simply because as long as we're in
a battle
with what we construe as
their base
nature,
we're locked, untransformed, into the
biggerbattle
with our own. It will never work until we grok that if
their end of the canoe is shelled, we will
all end up
in the water.
Is who we're being, at least partially
at cause in
the national and international malaises that haunt and torment us? It's
a sickeningly confrontive question to entertain. Simply entertaining it
like a possibility can put us into a dark place, given the
sheer hopelessness and helplessness of it. But if we just keep on
pushing through the dark place, alone, suddenly we burst out into
sunshine. And when we do, don't be so surprised, but that's what was
going to happen all along. We just didn't notice it while we were
staying so busy dominating and avoiding being dominated, being right
and avoiding being wrong, winning and avoiding losing. Listen
carefully,
my friends
(again): it's got to work for everyone and everything, or it's not
going to work for us at all. That's transformation.
