Back in 1986 there was a seminar series, lead by no other than Werner Erhard.
I was brand new, but I was allowed to sign up. The topic was: “I have something to say in the matter”.
At the time my level of understanding was that I can change what I do, I can protest to what other people do… I did not understand that you can say something in the matter of everything that belongs to you.
Everything that belongs to you… out of which the most potent is your being. Who are you in the matter of X.
So, how does this being expresses itself, really?
Thoughts
Can you be responsible for what you think? I have found out, that you can’t be responsible for your thoughts, as much as you can’t be responsible for the weather. Millions have tried, and the only thing you can do about thoughts is repressing them… and anything that you repress will come to bite you in the butt… like nuns and priests dream about sex all the time, in fact they sleepwalk and dream about it day and night.
Emotions
Can you be responsible for how you feel? I have found out that you can’t. If you love, you love, If you hate, you hate. If you are angry, you are angry.
So what can you do about emotions? You guessed right: you can suppress them. Unfortunately if you don’t like anger, or hate, and you try to suppress them, you’ll find that you have also suppressed love, compassion, and caring, because you can’t just suppress one emotion… so you’ll walk around dead pretending “positive” emotions, but you pay with your aliveness…
What you say
This is the area where you have the most power… I guess you could have guessed it from Werner’s question: I have something to say in the matter.
Your words can help you escape the trap of seeing things the exact same way, so life will turn out the exact same way. Your words can help gain a different perspective of the matter… whatever the matter is.
Speaking and thinking are not the same. If you think that speaking is just putting your thoughts to loudspeaker, you are living a very reactive life.
Speaking is a conscious formulating of what you want to say in the matter.
You have your starting point, always, and it is almost always the same reactive, victim mentality point: you know what it is for you.
Sometimes it is not that easy to see: often it is like trying to see the back of your head.
Example: whenever I can’t find something, my first thought is: “someone took it.” Why? I have no idea. But that is my starting point: Others take from me, abuse me, poor me, poor me.
I was born with that, I think.
I remember when I never went beyond that, but nowadays I catch it and laugh… and then try to remember what I did with the thing last… I almost always find the darn thing.
This is my starting attitude, and judging from the angry responses from readers: a lot of you share it with me. You yell bloody murder almost instantly, never investigating what happened, never fully reading the instructions, never listening to what I have to say… Knee jerk reaction.
Catching these knee jerk reactions is your starting point for “I have something to say in the matter”.
And this is one of those “mind bugs” that Andy doesn’t know to talk about.
Now, let’s see a few objections you might have.
You may say: it’s lying… I know the truth and the truth is X.
First off: you don’t know the truth, or you don’t know the whole truth. Reality is collective hunch at best. From the limited perspective of your mind you can only see what you have already seen, that’s why your life is so repetitive. The same story, over and over again.
Second: all “truths” are interpretation. But all interpretations are just likely stories… Likely stories, remember this one. Important.
I have found that unless you can tell at least a thousand different likely stories about most anything, your life is flat, lifeless, and you are a walking dead.
Practice looking at things happening, people, and try to come up with as many likely stories as possible.
Likely story is a story that could be true. It is not far fetched: it could be true.
I first met likely story in a seminar where the leader insisted that my mother did what she did to me, because she loved me… It took me a while to see that it could be true, if I managed to look from a different angle.
It altered my relationship to my mother, and thus my life. And I took it on myself to be masterful at seeing as many likely stories as possible…
You are next. Are you ready?
