I am indebted to Jack Rafferty who inspired this conversation.
Yes
it's OK
to
stand up
and
play
the acoustic guitar, and sing. What's not OK is to say
"I'd like to sing a song I
wrote:
I call it Yesterday", and then sing what everyone
knows is a cover of Paul McCartney's
timeless classic.
It's OK
to
paint.
What's not OK is to say "I
painted
these portraits: I call this one Blue Nude, and I
call that one
Mona Lisa",
displaying what everyone can tell are replicas of
Pablo Picasso
and Leonardo da Vinci's priceless masterpieces.
Being
me
(being
anyone actually, but given I'm me, it
works
best for me to
speak
for myself) requires having lots of heated irons in the
fire and / or keeping many juggled balls in the air (so to
speak)
at the same
time.
There's a lot to
create.
There's a lot to balance at once. There's so much to maintain ie to
keep going. There's so much to plan for and make
happen.
And
being
I'm a
stimulus / response
reactivation machine,
I'm out of control not just some of the
time
but most of the
time.
Yet as a
human being,
I'm expected to maintain at least a modicum of control ("I'm a
human being,
I'm out of control" is not a good defense to
present
to a court).
As a
human being,
I can bring
transformation
to bear. And as soon as I stop bringing
transformation
to bear, there's no
transformation.
This suggests the odds
clearly
aren't in my favor. To the contrary, without my say so, they may
even be stacked against me. So how do I manage these odds?
I manage them through my
relationship
with myself. Overall, I have a good
relationship
with this entity I call
Laurence
(and if I don't, then who will?). When I
speak
of the entity I call
Laurence,
there's its
being,
its space, its
context
for which I can take very little credit: it's
simplythere, it always was there, and it always will be there. And
then there's
Laurence
like an
identity,
like an
ego,
like an
act,
like what I'm seen to be doing. It's the latter I've had
something to do with, and which I can put to good
use:
I can
choose
it to be my top hat or my
Scottie dog
ie my token to move around the Monopoly board of Life.
It's what keeps me in the
game.
OK, that accounts for
Werner,
and me ... and then there's everything else. On the
face
of it, "everything else" sounds like a
vast
category. It is. So let's look at it - but
tersely:
it all
turns out
just
the way
it
turns out;
it never
turns outone scintilla differently than
the way
it
turns out.
That's it. If you
get
that, there's a great
surrender,
a great
peace
it makes available. That, and given our propensity for making things
unduly complicated and
significant,
it
simplifies
things beyond
belief
(literally) too.
So now we've accounted for
Werner,
me, and everything else, with that thumbnail sketch ie
with that
blueprint
laying bare the three components for all this
working.
Now, to be
clear
about
why
the confluence of these components
works
(and
why
it makes for
workability):
it's not because it's a huddle or a
private,
closed, elitist group or even a mutual support system (even if, from
time
to
time,
it's erroneously accused of
being
/
interpreted
to be one or more of the above). No, what
works
about it, is this: like the three sides of an equilateral
triangle,
each component just is. And watch:
simply
by virtue of its three sides just
being,
a
triangle
has
integrity.
I assert
nothing
else is required for
integrity
and
workability,
other than for me to be
my word in the matter
of these three components existing. There's
nothing
else required to be done in this regard because the three components
already exist ie
Werner,
me, and everything else already exist together synchronously, like a
song sung in
perfect
three part harmony (so to
speak)
- even though the last thing
Werner's
known for, is singing.
So if it's singing you want, don't pass him the mike. Pass it to me
directly instead. And if you don't pass it to me, I'll take it. I'll be
responsible for it. Just take note that if it's
me who gets to do the singing,
I won't lie to you about who
wrote
the song.
