I am indebted to Linda Gale who inspired this conversation.
If your measurement of quality of life in
the world
ie if your gauge of quality of life in
the world
is the
evening news
or the
morning press,
it's not a pretty picture out there, is it? We live in the
ever-present
hope that things will
get
better. Yet
the truth
is probably
closer
to they'll
get
worse, or at least they'll stay just about the same, which is bad
enough. It's a trajectory we've been on for hundreds maybe thousands of
years. And while things may have changed both quantitatively and
qualitatively, we're still doing the
same old same
old
whatever we do. Almost everyone anywhere knows there's
got
to be a better
way.
At the same
time
we're
clearly
bankrupt in being able to do anything about our thrown-ness
keeping the status quo pretty much the same year after year after year
regardless of whatever we try to do about it.
When I
begin
taking responsibility for
creating
a
future
for myself ie when I start taking responsibility for inventing
possibilities for my life, it soon becomes profoundly, fundamentally,
and very, very obviously
clear
that life in
the world,
regardless of how it may appear to be tragically off course, no matter
how much it may look like it's not
the way
it's s'posed to be, however long we've been
watching
the same dramas
play
and
re-play
ie run and re-run on the
evening news
and in the
morning press,
and even if it simply and resolutely refuses to fit our pictures of
what we all know life in
the worldshould
look like, is really
perfectthe way it is
(and
the way
it isn't).
Now, given
how
what's on the
evening news
and in the
morning press
lands, it's almost impossible to really
get
that things in
the world
are
perfectthe way they are
(and
the way
they aren't) because of our propensity to hear it like an
opinion, like a judgement, like an evaluation, and
even like a threat. For every opinion there's a counter-opinion,
for every judgement there's a counter-judgement, for every evaluation
there's a counter-evaluation, for every threat there's a
counter-threat. So
listen:
you simply can't
get
it those
ways.
There's arguably but one place to
stand
to
getthe world
is
perfectthe way it is
(and
the way
it isn't) and that's in
observingwhat's so.
With regards to
observingwhat's so:
what is, is; what isn't, isn't (it's pure
vintage Erhard)
which, by the way, is as
close
as it
gets
to a
true
definition of
"perfect".
I assert it's more than this definition is the ground of being for all
existence: it's this definition is the count-on-able ground of
being for all existence. I
love
that it has the unerring
power
to slice through all the doom and gloom and drama portrayed on the
evening news
and in the
morning press.
I
love
that it has the
power
to shake me
awake
and
constitute
me
powerfully
in a place from which I have some leverage over my experience of
the worldthe way
it is (and
the way
it isn't). Oh, I
love
that I can wave it like a
magic
wand which says (ie which reminds me) "Thank
goodness
it's
perfectthe way it is!",
the
evening news
and
morning press
notwithstanding.