"You need to get
clear
the
universe
doesn't give a damn about what you want."
...
I like her. A lot. She was
speaking
about a close
friend
of hers whose life had crawled to a
complete
standstill. I've had a few of those moments myself (who hasn't?). In
hindsight (and hindsight is always 20/20 vision) those
moments always pass as the
inexorability
of
Life
moves us on to whatever's
next
for us - even if at the
time
it looks like we're going to be stuck forever. But that's
not what got her. What got her was (she said) that her
friend
was a (quote unquote) "good" person. She was bemoaning
that it "shouldn't
happen
to such a good person" - which is a
related
version of the familiar ancient enigma
"Why
do bad things
happen
to good people?".
I knew that to which she was alluding. I also consider myself to be a
good person. When my life came to a standstill (as it's done - more
than once), I also bemoaned that it "shouldn't
happen
to me". But
clearly
it did. And when it did, it became really apparent to me I required a
new
context
in which to be with what was
happening.
Werner
shared the
perfectcontext
with me. I tried it on ... and it
works.
So I
recreated
it for her. What he shared with me was essentially this: that my (ie
our) only access to impacting life, is
action,
and that the
universe
doesn't give a damn about what I
intend,
how
committed
I am, how I feel, or what I think, and certainly it has no
interest
in what I want or in what I don't want. He suggested instead I take a
look at life as it's lived, and discover for myself the
universe
only moves for me when I
act.
Beyond that, the
universe
doesn't give a damn. And when I got that,
Laurence
(ie the
littleLaurence,
the
littleguy
who always bleats "Moi?") was
transformed.
She
listenedintently,
quiet.
Then after a
moment
she asked
"Why
do you have to say it 'doesn't give a damn'?", frowning. "That
makes it sound so hard, so callous. If you're going to say it ie
if you're going to
use
it at all,
why
can't you say something kinder, something gentler - something like it's
'divinely indifferent' for example?".
She was suggesting a
way
of re-phrasing it so it would land easier for her in her
listening.
I
got
it. "I agree" I said. "There is something really nice, almost
poetic
about saying it's 'divinely indifferent', rather than it 'doesn't give
a damn'. The thing is we do that a lot: we make things sound nice ie we
dress them up, rather than allowing them to make an impact. I
intend
to give you a
black and white
choice, a no nonsense realization which
empowers
you, rather than the good feelings we get when we hear bon
motsspokenpoetically.
The truth
is as a
lover
of
language,
I really want you to get both. But I
intend
that the heft of the former far outweighs the latter.".
Werner
isn't about making
the truth
palatable. He's about making
the truthaccessible. She's a
mother.
I knew she would
relate
to her
natural knowing
of
the way
she raised her
daughter.
I asked her "When your
child
first tripped and fell, did you wag your
finger
at the ground and berate it, saying 'Naughty, naughtygravity!'?".
The exact
language
you deploy which gives
form
to your
child's
experience, is critical. She'll learn about
gravity
from what you say about it, as well as from her own
natural knowing.
The last thing you want to do as a
parent
is encourage your
child
to mitigate or even avoid her own
direct experience
of life. You don't want to dress it up.".
So: the
universe
doesn't give a damn about what we want. Now, do we want to
hear that? We probably don't. It's worse than that really. It's in most
cases, we can't hear it. But
the truth
is like that. It just is. It doesn't cater to what we want, nor to what
we don't want, or even to whether we can hear it or not. His
distinction brings forth all that ... and more. His distinction also
brings forth our only access to impacting life, which is taking
action
(to which the
universealways responds -
bigtime).
On the verge of explaining it to her, I hesitated. I've been around
long enough to know you can't have this explained. Explaining blurs it.
You can however just
get
it.