This essay,
Brilliant Is In Your Ears,
is the companion piece to
Projector.
I am indebted to John Hunter and to Palmer Kelly who inspired this
conversation.
"Brilliant!" he said to me after listening intently to something I
wrote.
"Thank You" I said. "I got your acknowledgement, and I'd like you to
consider brilliant, good Sir, is really in your ears.".
A half minute, during which nothing was said, went by. Then, eyes
narrowing, puzzlement seeping into his tone of voice, he asked
"What the heck are you
talking about?".
What I seem to be doing ie what I accept responsibility for
in the matter, is flapping my fingers at a computer keyboard, then
uploading the resulting collection of characters to the internet which,
in turn, renders wiggly marks on your computer screen.
That's what I do, and that's all I do. I don't put value,
I don't put brilliant per se on the internet. It's the
generous listening you bring to this process in which any value, in
which any brilliant
shows up.
Any value, any brilliant in what I say (or write, as the case
may be)
shows up
wholly, completely, totally, and entirely in your
listening.
No kidding! It really does. This isn't some kind of false
modesty on my part. Nor is it being unwilling to accept
acknowledgement. If you say
Conversations For
Transformation
or something you read in them are (quote unquote) brilliant, I
say "brilliant" is in your ears.
If you say brilliant is somewhere out there in the world,
it would be an assessment on your part. In other words, you'd look
out there, see something, assess it as brilliant, then declare
it's brilliant. That's if brilliant is somewhere out there
in the world. The trouble is: it's not.
There's nothing intrinsically brilliant in the world. There's nothing
intrinsically brilliant in what I do. Rendering a collection of wiggly
marks on your computer screen is about as brilliant as the wiggly marks
earthworms render as they ess over a muddy patch in your
vegetable garden. Your assessment brilliant doesn't make
it brilliant. It's only an assessment it's brilliant.
But here's the thing: in order for you to make the assessment
brilliant, you have to already have an idea of
brilliant against which you can make the assessment
brilliant. And this already idea of brilliant which you
already have, is where brilliant is. If there is brilliant, it's not
out there. It's prior to out there. It's even prior
to your assessment brilliant of what's out there.
It's in your already idea of brilliant. It's in your
listening. Simply put, brilliant is in your ears.