I support an elderly
friend
with her
computer.
Although she only uses it for
e-mail,
there are the things which invariably need
attention
for which she doesn't have the technical skills to manage: once a
computer
is connected to the
internet
(and whose isn't?), it's not a matter of if viruses,
spyware, adware, and malware etc if they're unchecked, will start
choking it, but when. Even the best virus scanners and firewalls
won't stop them completely. You can purge them, but only those you can
locate.
Using a virus scanner, a virus scraper, and the registry editor,
I remove as many of them as I can locate. Some bounce right back until
I hunt them down and delete them. For a while, things will go faster.
Then inevitably I'll get a call from her saying her
computer's
slow again, and I'll go by and spend two hours cleaning it again.
One day I suggested to her "Would you
consider
resetting your
computer
to factory condition? It'll be as fast as it was when you first bought
it. You'll gain five years of speed back. We'll still keep an eye on it
- just as we're doing now. But it'll be like keeping an eye on a brand
new
computer
rather than on a five year old infested
computer
with which we're futzing endlessly. Given the speed the
factory reset would make available, and the hassles it would get rid
of, you'd be
stoopid
not to.".
After determining she won't lose anything by resetting her
computer
(her e-mail being available as webmail), I pressed the [FACTORY
RESET] button ... and soon she had her brand new
computer
back - bullet processing speed, lightning fast window refresh rate,
virus / spyware / adware / malware
free,
a pleasure to work with.
Life itself
also has a [FACTORY RESET] button. It's called
transformation.
When I look at the issues and concerns which proliferate in
our world
today (it's hard not to notice them, it's hard to look
away: they're all around us), two things become paramount. The first is
every age, every era has had (their own version of) issues and
concerns. In this way, ours are neither more unique nor more important.
But the second is today we do have something other ages, other eras,
didn't have: we have a factory reset button: we have
transformation.
On
considering
our age's, our era's issues and concerns, the truth is many of them are
so
stoopid,
given what's possible.
"You started it". "No I didn't". "Did too". "Didn't". "Did". "Didn't".
Sounds familiar? Is it two four year olds in the
school
yard? Or is it the entire Middle East? At some point you
can't help but notice how
stoopid
conflicts really are. And that's all they would be:
stoopid
- except their level of
stoopid
comes with terrible consequences.
If you're
listening
this
conversation for
transformation
like I'm suggesting changing
the world,
that's a
slippery
slope to be careful of. The shape of
the world
as it is today,
reflects
/ is the result of, our ongoing preoccupation with changing things -
and "plus ça change, plus c'est la même
chose": the more things change, the more they stay the same,
yes? In terms of resolving conflict,
face it:
change has never
worked.
Transformation
isn't change - to the contrary,
transformation
is the space in which all things are exactly the way they are, and
exactly the way they aren't. That being a given,
transformation
is the ground of being for inventing new possibilities.
Like a
computer's
[FACTORY RESET] button,
transformation
doesn't change any situations and circumstances by futzing with them.
Things are the way they are, and they aren't the way they aren't.
Rather, it provides a completely new start to the way we hold /
consider
/ know / regard all situations and circumstances. In particular, it
makes available the power of
who we're being
in, and what we bring to, all situations and circumstances.
Given what then becomes possible, it's
stoopid
to ignore it.