Given the title of this
essay,
it should be noted that when you admonish anyone to (quote unquote)
"Shut up!", there's obviously the potential (maybe the
intention?)
for disrespect. When you admonish someone to "Shut up!", it may be
because you're uninterested in what they have to say (and that's when
you'd say something like it). But in fact it may be a lot worse than
that: it may be that you
simply
don't have the space for them to say anything at all (at
least not at thismoment
in
time).
What I'd like to
consider
(and then introduce in this
essay)
is the
possibility
of telling someone to "Shut up!" in a
way
that's not only
kind
and compassionate, but also extremely valuable - in other
words,
what I'd like to
consider,
isn't your
business as
usual
"Shut up!". What makes it not your
business as usual
"Shut up!" is twofold: firstly it's (as I said) given by:
this "Shut up!" carries (perhaps unusually)
kindness
and compassion; secondly it's given by that to which this "Shut up!"
is directed.
Wait! What does that
meanLaurence:
"... that to which this 'Shut up!' is directed"? Don't you
mean
"to whom" it's directed? No, I do
mean
"to which". Let me
clarify.
The method of
kindness
to which I'm referring, is empathetickindness.
The method of compassion to which I'm referring, is often described as
ruthless compassion. For "Shut up!" to have any value at
all, you have to be empathetically
kind
when delivering it - it will have even more value if you
deliver it with ruthless compassion. Without these two adjuncts in
place, "Shut up!" could at best land as
simply
rude, and at worst as imposing and suppressive. However when delivered
with empathetic
kindness
and ruthless compassion, "Shut up!" (in
the way
I'm proposing it) can point toward (if not convey a real taste of) the
elusive experience of
transformation.
Now "Shut up!" as I've deployed it so far in this
conversation,
is really an abbreviation of "Shut up and do what you're
doing.". There are two parts to this injunction. First there's the
"Shut up" part which is directed at our internal dialog. And
it's not so much directed at our internal dialog itself (which is
arguably on full automatic, and unstoppable anyway), but rather at all
the
significance
we heap onto our internal dialog. Then there's the "... and do what
you're doing" part which is directed at wherever you're
being in
action
ie it's directed at whatever you're doing. Life (as
Werner Erhard
asserts)
happensout-here
where the
action
is. Setting many centuries of contrary
beliefs
aside, what's "in here" is just
machinery embedded in
hamburger.
Being
transformed,
it may be said, is living
out-here
where Life actually
happens.
Listen:
it calls for a
bigcommitment
(no kidding!) to give up our tenacious investment in our
misconstrued
internal dialog (our tenacity blinds us to its automaticity and to its
unstoppability, as well as to all the misplaced
significance
we lavish on it) in favor of investing instead in
simply
being in
action
- that is to say in favor of doing what you're doing. In this
regard, it's been averred that (to deploy a descriptor which has a
certain poetic nicety) the sublime
state ofZen
is merely doing what you're doing when you're doing it
(enlightenment,
in other
words,
is "doing what you're doing when you're doing it"). Could it be
thatsimple?
(who woulda thunk?).
A
closefriend
of mine schedules his life ie he plans it (or he
creates
it, if you prefer). No doubt you do too - and no doubt you also know
many people who do too. What sets
my friend
apart is he schedules his entire life in fifteen minute
increments, and he schedules each fifteen minute increment at
least five years or more ahead - sometimes
ten.
People have commented "How un-spontaneous is that!". But I say
"How
brilliant
is that!". He's doing what he's doing when he's doing it. And if he
wants to know what he should be doing now, he looks at his schedule.
That's how he knows (how
brilliant
is that!). I'm a fan of "Shut up and do what you're doing.".