Podcast: Play in new window | Download
I slept in today.
I had a dream up till the very moment I opened my eyes.
In the dream I talked to lots of smart people. So I didn’t want to wake up… I was hanging around longer than usual in the threshold. I talked to Warren Buffet, Charlie Munger, Bill Gates, Michael Jordan… I also watched them.
I wasn’t looking for answers, I was looking. And I got some answers.
I was curious to see how they were that they could go so far further than most in wealth, success. In fame.
One of the most important things I saw is that they didn’t try.
They didn’t try to understand things. There was no forcing. No violence.
When I watch you, you have two modes: you try and you give up.
Trying is forceful. It is violence.
- Trying to understand
- Trying to remember
- Trying to do before all the parts are together
These are forceful. Unnatural. Against Life.
The competitive plane.
There must be some machine-like worldview underneath that I don’t see… a worldview of right or wrong. Good or evil. Not the way life is… good, evil, right, wrong, are human inventions, Tree of Knowledge.
You cannot have fun inside that paradigm, the competitive plane. The plane of either this or that… never both. The plane where compassion has to blame someone, because there is always someone guilty.
I am re-learning Hebrew on Duolingo.
I now know about 300 words reliably, I can say them, I can type them. I spent no time trying to memorize them. I allowed them to take residence in my brain.
I have no agenda. I have no reason to learn Hebrew. I have only one thing: have a chance to observe how I do things, so I can turn around and teach it. Teach why I have fun and results together.
I am also learning to bake bread and I am starting with English Muffins… I have never baked anything…
So far I am doing my thing… I am having a difficult time doing it the way THEY do it… We shall see how the results will be… No results yet.
I once watched a Chinese movie where one of the characters was a school teacher. In China children learn by memorization.
If you went to school in the United States, you probably learned your multiplication table the same way.
I learned my alphabet that way, and I still have to sing the whole thing from a to z to locate a letter.
It is an ineffective way to learn: no knowledge can come from it. Because it doesn’t involve seeing. Discovery. Adventure. Joy. It considers you a machine and your ‘mind’ the whole brain.
It becomes the foundation of a life of no fun, being a cog in a machine, no experience. No wind in your face. No discovery.
Yesterday I heard an expression in an Irish movie: ‘Oh, that is the Irish shit sandwich: pat your head while they kick your ass.’
Result: you try harder. You try to save yourself from the Irish sandwich. And as you don’t succeed instantly: you quit.
The people I met in the dream had a third path.
They weren’t stuck with the either/or world of the Tree of Knowledge. They didn’t try harder to remember, to fit in, to get more pats on their heads. And they didn’t quit either.
They managed to remain curious, in spite of the education system that failed them. They read. Books. And they kept their eyes open. Saw everything. Didn’t try to see: they just saw.
When you learn what ‘they’ teach, or even what I teach, you are a good little boy or girl, and will never amount to much.
Because you looked at what they taught as the thing to learn.
Not life. Not a journey that has no destination.
Not adventure.
You are a jail decorator. You have options. Not freedom. Freedom to be. Freedom to create. Freedom to explore. Freedom to fly.
Life, you think, is still a school for you where you are either succeeding or not.
You are so scared of coloring outside of the lines, you won’t even risk doing it.
Looking? What if you see something you don’t know what to do with? Something that doesn’t fit your neat self-image? Or world image?
This, your self-imposed limitations, is the hardest thing to break for a coach.
This is also an area where one swallow appearing doesn’t make it spring… an event is mostly an accident.
Curious is simply the capacity to look, and look, and look some more. Without fear.
Curious is where you call fear excitement: same physiological symptoms.
Following the path that you don’t know where it leads. A journey with no destination.
The life worth living is the kind of life where you can say: I was born to live. Live Life. Wherever it takes.
PS: There are points 3, 4… So this article is not finished…
I have already started part 2… Triggered by an email by Mind Valley founder, Vishen Lakhiani… Tree of Knowledge person extraordinaire… Stay tuned.
PS: I have a habit to ask my clients, my students to consider that what I am sharing is like the water of the shower… There they don’t worry and don’t try to get wet… in fact, they can’t avoid getting wet.
If you allow knowledge to come to you and get you ‘wet’ you don’t effort, you don’t try… Because all that trying is actually blocking what you are trying to get…
Talk about counter-intuitive…
I have already posted the second gift for people who signed up to the ‘awareness’ list…
If you didn’t think it was important… then you can still sign up…
Your gift will be sent to your email address immediately. No waiting.
Why awareness and why in this article?
If you were aware that you are performing violence against yourself… would you continue? But you think that you are doing something useful…
And you do it everywhere. And you remain stuck exactly where you started.
