Sometimes I have the good fortune to
be around
powerful people. Powerful people aren't forceful. Being powerful is a
matter of being who you are. Being forceful is a matter of what people
do. Sometimes I have the good fortune to
be aroundvery powerful people. And sometimes I have the good
fortune to
be around
people who are so powerful it's as if they have their own time-zones,
their own
gravity
field, even their own black holes from which
nothing can escape, including light and moi. I've
distinguished that quality elsewhere in
this internet collection of essays.
Whenever I have, I've referred to it as being
"scary" powerful. Conversations with scary powerful
people are
dangerous
to
my ego.
Yet they also keep me
wide awake,
focused, paying rapt
attention.
Around these giants of
the world,
planets
and
moons
orbit effortlessly. Wolves bay when they
walk
past them in the forest. And today is one of those days when I have the
good fortune to meet with and converse with one such scary powerful
giant via Zoom (Covid
stopped
our in-person
breakfast meetings).
The danger
is palpable.
My heart
pounds. I'm elated. Then the Zoom window populates. There
he is! I'm instantly present to the
privilege
of
the moment.
Given what's at stake (it's nothing less than the total exposure of /
the calling into account of
my entire life),
I hold nothing back from him, propelled to the delicious edge of
abject danger
by the sword of telling the total, absolute truth. Being in a
conversation with him is no trivial matter, no chit-chat, no bed of
roses, no pleasure cruise. It's akin to diving off the highest high
board: if I don't do it confidently, unhesitatingly, and unequivocally,
I won't do it at all. And then I'll not know what it's like, and I'll
always be
afraid
of it until I experience it fully, and resolve my
fear of it.
And if
I say I'm going to dive,
and then I turn away at the last minute, that actually raises
an integrity
issue,
and I'll have left one of life's opportune
transformative*moments
on the cutting room floor (so to speak). That's
what's so
as I confront being open,
vulnerable,
and transparent with him. It's
a danger
I'm
facing.
It's palpable. I exhale slowly.
Notions (from the past) have
a short half-life and need to be recreated from time to
time.
That's what happens if they aren't ongoingly re-distinguished. An old
adage reminds us that "nothing is new under that sun". Some of my
notions have become
jargondized
since our last Zoom meeting. So they're old now, and I've been slipping
closer and closer to
ego-centrically
"knowing it all". That's not new. And
the trouble
with it is he hasn't. And like a moth to a flame, I get burned each and
every time I forget to generate transformation newly with each and
every
word
and
sentence
and paragraph which I speak with him.
But this kind of burn, this ordeal by fire (if you will) is actually
transformative*
and leads to a good outcome. Still, to experience it fully, I have to
relinquish wanting to control the narrative, and
trust
him totally,
committedly,
1,000%-edly. Then with a jolt, I suddenly realize his powerful presence
/
the way
he
creates
himself being in
the world,
comes from
Life itself.
He is literally being
Life itselfplaying
in
the world.
That's who (and what) he
creates
himself to be. If I want what he's got, I have to relinquish wanting to
control ie I have to relinquish wanting to be in control,
and
trust
him implicitly, unreservedly.
Our time is up. He exhorts me to "pay
attention
to what comes out of
(my) mouth".
Given that transformation occurs as a conversation, it's sage counsel.