"The being of human beings is a mechanism, the end of which, the
purpose, the design function of which is survival. You see now, you
can't hear it because you know it's going to
work out. You're just sure it's going to work out. It
isn't going to work out. Really! It is not going to
work out. This is all there is. This, this what you got, is
what there is - never mind the fairy tale. This is it! It
is not going to work out because it has already worked
out! This is the way it worked out. You don't
like that? Too bad ..."
"Wow!"
she mused,
"'Never ... mind ... the ...
fairy ... tale ...'", mulling it over and
over and over, savoring it. "Hmmm, that seems a bit ruthless, don't you
think?" she said. "Well, it is" I said after a pause, "indeed, it's not
just a bit ruthless: it's ruthless - period.". She
half-smiled, like I'd agreed with her - which in a way, I had. "But you
left out something important" I continued. "Oh? And what's that?" she
asked, convinced she hadn't. "You left out 'This is it!'. It's not just
'Never mind the fairy tale.'. It's 'Never mind the fairy tale. This
is it!'. And yes that is ruthless. It's compassionately
ruthless.".
That's the choice really. It's the
transformative*
choice. It's the choice between grounding our lives on a fairy tale ...
and grounding our lives on "This is it!". When I lay it out clearly
like that, there's no choice for me ie it's a
"no-choice choice" ie it's a Hobson's choice.
We've always known about grounding our lives on a fairy tale. And let's
be clear about this: when that's all that's available, grounding our
lives on a fairy tale is a pretty good choice. But when grounding life
on "This is it!" takes shape like a possibility and comes
into view, and is available as a choice too, it becomes
the choice ie the no-brainer choice, the "Of
course ... duh!" choice, the forehead-slapping choice, the
"Day-amn!-why-didn't-I-think-of-that-myself-before?" choice, the
human choice.
Now watch: there's something to address while the possibility of
grounding life on "This is it!" takes shape, and it's
resignation
... as in "If life is grounded on 'This is it!' and not on a fairy
tale, then why bother? I mean why bother when this is
already it?" like some already-decided fatalistic
predetermination. To resolve that, I invited her to stand back a bit,
and see if she could have "This is it!" as a profound, powerful ground
of being for her life, and not have it be like some already-decided
fatalistic predetermination. That way, "This is it!" and not a fairy
tale, could become her ground of being. "Try it on" I urged.
This isn't a call to action (nor to inaction for that matter). This is
it! ... and you act or you don't act.
Resignation's
got nothing to do with it. If you act, this is it! If you don't act,
this is it! Here's the thing though: this is it! That's
not a judgement, nor is it an assessment, and nor is it an opinion that
this is it! Rather it's a simple, cold, flat-footed
observation
of
what's so,
a simple, cold, flat-footed
observation
that this and not something else, is it -
the Big "IT".
This is it! Tell the truth: when you look at it
unflinchingly,
this
can't not be it. Look:
how can the light be off when
it's on?
This is so simple that it's absurd. What is, is. What is not, is not.
And yes, it really is "so
simple" (but it's not
always easy).
The fairy tale doesn't negate that. It merely obscures its view
temporarily.
Somewhere along the line, especially in a conversation like this, it's
easy to get stuck in trying to live from "This is it!"
rather than being run by a fairy tale. That's trying to distill living
down to "right / wrong, good / bad" constraints. Don't do that. I was
in a group conversation with
Werner
in which a guy shared
"Werner,
this work
is so great. Yesterday I discarded two constraints
I've been run by" to which
Werner
responded "And as far as I can tell, today you only added one
more.". Fairy tales don't need to be discarded. Some of the richest
gifts of life in our world are legends, stories, folk tales and lore ie
fairy tales, which we then conceptualize to be outcomes for our lives.
This isn't about diluting them or denying them or even discarding them
like that guy with
Werner
in the group. It's about distinguishing where they supersede "This is
it!" as our ground of being, and the wealth of possibilities this new
distinction affords.
