Coombsville Appellation,
Napa Valley,
California, USA
June 25, 2026
"We didn't start the fire. It was always burning since
the world's
been turning. We didn't start the fire. No we didn't light it but we
tried to fight it."
I am indebted to Larry Pearson who inspired this conversation.
I
watchmy life
as it unfolds. I watch
Life itself
unfolding. I look to
what's coming next
- like what I want to create
next
ie like what's
worth
creating
next.
If one thing's abundantly clear, it's that there's
a background
(if you will) against which it all unfolds,
a background
against which I create everything. That
background
is a context. I see
I am the source
of the context in which
my life
unfolds. When I ask myself how I create the context in
which
my life
unfolds (I do want to know), my mechanism for creating a context is
this: I create a context in which
my life
unfolds by creating a context in which
my life
unfolds.
Uh oh ... Yes that is a circular, self-referential explanation.
Circular, self-referential explanations are generally unsatisfactory.
Yet in many situations in which explanations are called for, they're
the best ones we have. Looking to my intellect for
understanding the explanations, can be very arduous. But if I
simplyexperience them,
they work.
For example, lets explain how we walk. Try this: ask yourself "How do I
walk?". You walk by putting one foot in front of the other. And how do
you put one foot in front of the other? You put one foot in front of
the other by sending a signal from
your brain
to contract the muscles in your legs. Now it's getting
interesting.
But you still have not answered the question "How do I walk?"
satisfactorily. Walking is
easy.
Explaining it is hard.
When I ask how I send a signal from
my brain
to contract the muscles in my legs etc,
I discover
very quickly I don't understand how I walk at all. Yet I
walk all the time.
Consider this:
the fact is we walk by walking. When I get that I walk by
walking, I ask how I create a context for
my life
to be enjoyable,
worthwhile,
and
interesting
etc. And it follows from having realized I walk by walking, that I
create a context for
my lifesimply
by creating a context for
my life
- that is, I create a context for
my life
to be enjoyable, to be
worthwhile,
to be
interesting
just by creating a context for
my life
to be enjoyable, to be
worthwhile,
to be
interesting.
Stop looking for how you send a signal from
your brain
to your leg muscles to explain walking. That's a concept. It's a hoax.
Now look: when I wake up in the morning, more often than not the mood
is anything but enjoyable,
worthwhile,
and
interesting.
That's when I
wonder
where the not-enjoyable,
not-worthwhile,
not-interesting
condition comes from. We didn't create it. Or did we? It's one or the
other: we did or we did not.
Consider this:
all that stuff is
simplythe condition we wake up
into. It was here before we were born. It will be here long after
we're
dead.
We didn't create it. We
simply
wake up into it. Try this on:
don't fix it,
don't mess with it,
don't touch it. Just notice you woke up into it. Then newly create a
context for life to be enjoyable,
worthwhile,
and
interesting.
Suddenly I realize the condition I woke up into has
disappeared.
It
simply
isn't there anymore - at least, not for today. The condition I
woke up into has been replaced by a context I created for
my life
to be enjoyable,
worthwhile,
and
interesting.
It's that
simple.
The critical distinction here is "we didn't create it, we
simply
wake up into it". It's not who we are. And if there is a
"who we are" in this piece, it's the created context in which
the background
of our lives occurs as enjoyable or not,
worthwhile
or not,
interesting
or not. The condition we wake up into, on the other hand, is not
ours per se. It's just "here". It comes with the
territory of
being human.
Fighting it or trying to change it, is an exercise in
futility.
Postscript:
The presentation, delivery, and style of
The Condition We Wake Up Into
are all my own work.
The ideas
recreated in
The Condition We Wake Up Into
were first originated, distinguished, and articulated by
Werner Erhard.
