OK, they're set aside. So now, with both of them set aside, it's
time
to ante up.
Why
do I
love
you? Indeed,
why
do welove
you?
I
love
you / we
love
you, I say, because you turn the model of what it takes to be alright,
on its ear. In just about everything we do, practice,
believe
etc in order to be alright, a
background
certainty (which is to say an unexaminedbackground
certainty) is if we do this, practice this,
believe
this (ie whatever this is) long enough, we'll gradually
become alright and eventually we'll be
alright. And even if we don't eventually become
completely
alright, then at least we'll gradually get a
littlebetter
in the process, yes? (another unexamined
background
certainty is it's worth staying in this process even if it proves
futile,
because it's somehow good for us).
But you've
relentlessly
extracted
the myth
from all that. What you bring with you and put on the table at life's
pot-luck party is our already alright-ness (if you will).
There's no becoming alright
around you.
There's certainly no getting
betteraround you.
In
your space
it's all already alright - and in it, I'm already alright /
we're already alright. If I tell
the truth
about it, all those precious, noble doings, practices,
beliefs
etc ie all those endeavors which comprised major
chapters of my life
before I
discovered
myself in this
conversation
with you, as valuable as they were to me, as
interesting
as they were to me, as fascinating as they were to me,
never made me any more alright than I already was. That's the bottom
line.
Some of them may even have
gotten
in my
way
of experiencing I'm already alright sooner than I did.
And aren't you the one who said the thing we're most reluctant to give
up in order to be alright, is the fervent, feverish, cherished
belief
that we're not already alright? How
brilliant
is
that? How pure is that. Your
brilliance
doesn't come from figuring things out or from being the smarty pants.
Your
brilliance
comes from your simple willingness to
stand
and look into the space and say what's there without adding
embellishment,
opinion,
interpretation,
or spin. "Oh anyone can do that
Laurence
..." say the naysayers. Perhaps. But there's a big difference in this
regard between you and anyone: for the most part, people don't have
such a
commitment
to this
stand
as you do.
Inside
the
commitment
you
demonstrate,
people can
discovertheirstand
for themselves. Your unflagging
demonstration
is an enormous
gift
to
humanity.