"The only thing
you are going to do today is: what you do today. Therefore,
the only thing
there is to do today is: what you do today. That's all there was to do
when you started, no matter what you thought or think."
...
"We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient
characteristic of Life is its coerciveness: it is always urgent,
here and now without any possible postponement. Life is
fired at us point blank."
... Jose Ortega y Gasset read out loud by
This essay,
Unstoppable, Unavoidable, Inescapable: The Essential
Acceptance,
is the companion piece to
Mostly we give each other a pass when in talking about life, we refer
to it as in the phrase "the way we live life". We almost never (if
ever) refer to life and "the way it lives us". The
latter is just not on our radar. The former is - as a colloquial shot
at conceptualizing whatever it is we're doing during our brief time on
the planet
ie conceptualizing exactly what our relationship with life is. It's "we
live life". That's it. Simple. Obvious. Clear. Everyone knows that,
yes?
But perhaps "we live life" is not as completely baked as it sounds.
Perhaps as obvious as it sounds, it's just not yet ready for prime
time. Perhaps the idea is not as developed, not as fleshed out as it
ought to be. Perhaps, just perhaps (all colloquial shots aside) it's
not even correct that we live life at all. Perhaps, just perhaps, the
truth is closer to "life lives us" rather than "we live life". What if
the truth is that life lives us, and
the view
that we live life, is plain naïve? What if it's a
convenient
myth, a cherished, widely-held myth, but a
convenient,
cherished, widely-held myth nonetheless, a
flat-Earth
myth (if you will)?
Here's a hint, a clue that the idea that life lives us rather than we
live life, is an idea that doesn't
sit
well with you: you'll try to rephrase it some other way, to simplify
it, to make it sound acceptable, to make it more palatable, to
rationalize it away. But look: the way to make this complicated is to
try to simplify it. Rather, take "we don't live life: it lives us" and
sit
with it in your lap like a hot
brick.
Can you let it in that life as it lives us, is unstoppable,
unavoidable, inescapable? Can you see that we've really just made
up that we live life
(ego-centrically,
identity-centrically)
as a more
convenient
explanation than life lives us? And watch: it's actually a matter of
integrity
to be that life lives us rather than we live life ... but that's
another conversation for another occasion.
Notice how we recoil from the possibility that life lives us rather
than we life live. Notice the resistance. Notice the argument. Stay
with it.
Sit
with it in your lap some more. Consider that it's unquestionably true,
rather than debating whether it's true or not. Before there's
enlightenment,
before the advent of the possibility of transformation, that's what
there is to get. Consider that without it, there's no possibility of
enlightenment
or transformation. The "you" you say is living life, isn't living life
at all. The "you" you say is living life, is just a hoax, a trick life
plays on us, an optical illusion - kind of like a mirage. Indeed the
"you" you say is living life isn't really "you" at all. It's
just something that
shows up
for you (I'm starting to hear lots of "Oh jeez ..."s and
"Wow! ..."s).
Life as it lives us, is unstoppable, unavoidable, inescapable. And
that's
the way it
really is,
regardless of the way you'd prefer it to be, regardless of the way
you'd like it to be, regardless of the way you want it to be,
regardless of the way you thought or think it is, regardless of the way
it doesn't fit into your categories. That's the essential
acceptance. It's what there is to get, the chip to ante up, the
token to release the turnstile if you want to
be in the game.
What I mean by "life" is: all the mess that's
out-here.
And what I mean by "living" is: engaging with life. Tell the truth
about it: life's role in the matter of your living, carries more weight
than yours, yes?
The tyranny
of this situation is not up for grabs. It's dictatorial nature doesn't
require your
vote
or the outcome of a referendum. It's just
the way it is.
Your
opinions
aren't required (they may even get in the way - and often do). You
don't like that? Too bad.
Postscript:
The presentation, delivery, and style of
Unstoppable, Unavoidable, Inescapable: The Essential Acceptance
are all my own work.
The ideas recreated in
Unstoppable, Unavoidable, Inescapable: The Essential Acceptance
were first originated, distinguished, and articulated by
Werner Erhard.
