The Way We Are

Lately I've been reading a most unusual, challenging, insightful, and provocative book, The Way We Are, by Allen Wheelis. It is very short, weighing in at only 141 pages, but is as dense and compact as it is brief. He opens chapter 1, The Nature of Man, with the following propositions:

"Only the first life fed on nonlife. Thereafter, life feeds on life. Big fish eat little fish. Jaws develop fangs. Hawk falls on hare, bird takes worm; wings flutter in the teeth of the fox. Man eats hare, fish, fowl, lamb.

"We are both predator and victim. We kill those who have more to eat than we, or who threaten to take what we have -- or who do not threaten but whom we so imagine.

"We kill to take the female or the territory of a rival. A rival is one who has a female or a territory we desire.

"Property is a function of the willingness to fight. Titles are written in blood. Dusty deeds rest on old murders.

"We are children of slime, our teeth break bone, suck marrow, we live on others; we devour their lives without ever seeing their faces. The magic of money and commerce keeps them far away, their screams unheard."

In Chapter 2, The Group, we find a most telling observation:

"The rules that shape our lives defend the interests of the holders of power."

Later in the book we encounter this assertion about the way we are, with which I will close:

"We tend to assume that we know what we are, that our nature is obvious, given to us by direct observation of others and of ourselves: Just look around the world and look into your own heart and you will know the human condition. It's not so. What it is to be a human being is not clear at all, but deeply shrouded. Because, in the evolution from animal life to human life, along with the gain in knowledge and awareness, we have gained also the ability to deceive ourselves. We arrange not to know our nature, not so see what we are up to. Our self-deceptions are so dense, piled on so thick, like layers of paint on a canvas already painted, layer after layer, laid on from school and pulpit and lectern and TV and Internet, that it is all but impossible to break through, to get a clear view of what we really are.

"Behind our loudly professed values of freedom, justice, and equality lies a propensity to violence far stronger and far deeper than is known to any of us, even the most cynical. It is all but invincible, invades even the bedroom, corrupts what we call love. We indulge in vast hypocrisies, flagrant and subtle, to conceal from ourselves this destructiveness. We are in fact largely the opposite of what we think we are."

If you would care for a no holds barred, brutally honest look at "the way we are," you may want to take a look at this book.

Life Expectancy

Revisting The Story of You (see Feb 20 below) for just a minute, we find the following chart:

LIFE EXPECTANCY
Cro-Magnon Era................ 18
Ancient Egypt................... 25
1400s Europe................... 30
1800s Europe and U.S...... 37
1900s U.S......................... 48
2003 U.S.......................... 78

Isn't that fascinating? As everyone knows, many things on many fronts are getting worse. Threats of disaster abound on every hand, and the entire world, it seems, teeters on the brink of some sort of major cataclysmic catastrophe. But at least we are living longer! So, as the years roll on and age takes its relentless toll, I am strangely comforted by the fact that each day is a bonus, a gift that my forebears of only a hundred years ago did not have. Whether these are the best of times or the worst of times I cannot say, but certainly these are the longest of times! -- at least for us humans (and at least for the time being).

Your Own Desitny

Ralph Marston has a terrific website, "The Daily Motivator," which can be found at http://greatday.com/ Here, Marston delivers short, cogent, and wise "sermonettes" aimed to motivate one to make the very best of the one life we all have. I almost invariably find his words to be insightful and empowering. A website well worth checking out. Here is his posting for today:

"You have the power to control your own destiny. You may not feel at all comfortable with that, or want to own up to the responsibility it implies, yet it is true nonetheless.

"You may complain that there are so many powerful and overwhelming outside forces acting upon you that nothing you do will matter. Yet everything you do matters to the highest degree in creating your own destiny.

"It may seem that fate has dealt you a certain hand, and that there is no way for you to change that fate. You can, however, change everything about your own perspective and the way you respond.

"For your destiny is not about what comes to you. It is about who you choose to become.

"Your destiny is not really about what happens to you. It is built and fulfilled by the things that you cause to happen, by what you do with the precious life you have.

"It happens in every moment, with every choice, with every thought and every action. Always, you are creating your own unique destiny."

Not bad, hmmm? I believe he posts a new message six days a week. And he has an extensive archive where you can read scores of older "pep talks." May you find something there that will assist you in taking your next step forward!

Freedom

Everyday Zen is a wonderful book, and it's author, Charlotte Joko Beck is, an extraordianry teacher -- "an American Zen original," as it says in the preface. Here is a simply brilliant excerpt from her book:

"Freedom is closely connected with our relationship to pain and suffering. I'd like to draw a distinction between pain and suffering. Pain comes from experiencing life just as it is, with no trimmings. We can even call this direct experiencing joy. But when we try to run away and escape from our experience of pain, we suffer. Because of the fear of pain we all build up an ego structure to shield us, and so we suffer. Freedom is the willingness to risk being vulnerable to life; it is the experience of whatever arises in each moment, painful or pleasant. This requires total commitment to our lives. When we are able to give ourselves totally, with nothing held back, and no thought of escaping the experience of the present moment, there is no suffering. When we completely experience our pain, it is joy."

Is that not pure gold?! What more do we need to know to live wisely this moment, and to be free from suffering? Beck's Everyday Zen is a collection of short Dharma talks she has given, and it is a gold mine of Buddhist teachings and wisdom. Highly recommended.

Pure Silence

Not long ago I came across a wonderful website that contains a number of beautiful meditations on such spiritual topics as silence (surpise), love, death, truth, embracing this moment, and the like. You might want to stop by sometime for a refreshing dip into deep pools of wisdom. You'll be glad you did. Here is an excerpt from the author's discourse on Love:

"Perhaps there is no other word in the English language that has been written about as much. There is a reason for that.

"Love is Pure Silence.

"Love is the great allowing. Love lets it be! The silence is love. For love creates all that is. Love lets it happen, arise and disappear. There is only this.

"It has been said "God is love." Yes that is true. God, the nothingness, reality, Truth, awareness, Pure silence and love are just words which describe in some small way that which is right now beyond all the images, the noise, the thoughts. This is in you; this is you. You know that; you are that...."

Isn't that beautiful? Here is a link to the site: Pure Silence I hope you enjoy it!

The Magic Key to Greatness

I just finished reading a fascinating book, "The Story of You," by Steve Chandler. He introduces his final chapter with an intriguing quote by Bette Davis ("Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work") and then goes on to say:

"My work is often to find a magic key for people to use to take themselves from good to great, and I think I've found it. The magic key to greatness is doing something counterintuitive and pursuing the 'hard part' of your work.

"Most people don't want to do that. They want to focus on the easy (and soft) part of their work. But it helps more to focus on the hard part. To find what's hard and do more of it. Not less.

"Most of us avoid what's hard. Unless we are truly committed to being great. Then it changes. Then we seek what's hard."

The author goes on to give the example of a basketball player who is a good shooter and passer but not such a hot dribbler. So he goes around dribbling all day, day after day, and before long, he is a great dribbler and his game is vastly improved. "He turned the hard part into the easy part. The best part."

I haven't been able to do this just yet -- who wants to do the "hard part"? -- but I am still aiming to do so. This idea of doing the "hard part" is not unique to Chandler, though he has a unique way of expressing it. Here is Vince Lombardi on the same idea:

"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will."

Similarly, Brian Tracy writes of doing that which is "right and important, although difficult":

"Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the high road to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction."

Perhaps this idea is best summed up in the simple maxim, "Do the right thing, not the easy thing."

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Chandler's "The Story of You." He sets forth many provocative ideas in this little book about how we can move ahead and create a better life for ourselves.

He ends his short treatise with this gem:

"As a man's real power grows
and his knowledge widens,
ever the way he can follow grows narrower:
until at last he chooses nothing,
but does only and wholly
what he must do."
Ursula K. Le Guin
A Wizard of Earthsea