WHAT DO YOUREALLY WANT?
Chapter Three
TheCircumstance-Determined Reality
When people areunaware of the issue of filter, they have little option but to govern their life by whatthey "see." For most people, this takes the form of what might be called aCIRCUMSTANCE-DETERMINED REALITY: they give their own creative power to life's content. Or, said more accurately, they create "life" creating them! That iswhy people use absurd and irresponsible phrases such as "that made me angry." Very seldom do we hear people speak more honestly, along the lines of "Icreated 'that' making me angry." Given enough time, it is even common to findpeople whose primary expertise in life is the creation of anger in the presence of anycircumstance. Of course, they are not aware that they are doing this, thinkinginstead that the widest range of people, things, and events (to name just a few) really dohave the power to "make them angry."
As time passes, aperson can begin to employ a negative filter as a matter of habit. Once such anegative filter is picked up on a habitual basis, it can appear to be a fixture in anindividual's life. It isn't, of course. In fact, a person must continue topick up that filter, moment by moment. If they let it drop for a moment, perhapsinadvertently, and pick up a "Plus" filter, they are likely to describe their"experience" as an "exception to the rule" or "luck." With the habitual filter in place, there is a tendency to append negative labels to almost any oflife's content as it sails by us. People have been trained to think that theimposition of such labels is a function of "judgment and evaluation" instead ofcreativity. In other words, if you are "intelligent," you should be ableto "figure out" whether something "is" positive or negative. Theperson who "sees" something as positive is often "put down" (as aPollyanna, crazy, or etc.), as though they lack the crucial-to-life ability to see thenegative or are otherwise oblivious to "how it really is."
Eventually, ratherthan appear stupid or naive, most people simply attempt to present a "balanced"view of anything showing up around them. It is devastating, though, to drag Minusinto every nook and cranny of life. Given the short and long-term effects, there maybe few things which exceed "bringing Minus to the party" for sheer stupidity andnaivete! Historically, Minus has not "balanced" Plus in the humanexperience. Rather, it has demolished it. And, in the process, it has oftenproduced mentally unbalanced people!
Have you ever beenexcited about something, only to be "squashed" by a person who "couldn'tsee what you were so excited about?" Of course, the object of your excitementwas not, in and of itself, "exciting." It was only exciting because thatwas the way you were creating it. Sadly, people have not been trained, for the mostpart, to co-create the excitement of others, at least not consistently and effectively. The result is a nasty tendency which can kill off some of life's most wonderfulpossibilities. The most available in the possibility "childhood," forinstance, gives way to "less than that" as parents, teachers, and others declinechildren's invitations to participate in their joy.
Of course, it wouldmake sense to teach our children to create themselves as something other than"squashed" in the presence of life's content. After all, they willprobably encounter many people during their lives who will challenge their ability to keepcreating the most life has to offer. It is not a smart thing, for example, to turnover your steering wheel to those who the "politically correct" might refer toas the "enthusiastically-challenged." We have only two options in thesematters. Either we take responsibility for "playing our own game" in life,or we risk being constantly at the effect of the creations of others. The latterwill remain unattractive - often deadly, whether literally or figuratively - until peoplebegin creating their lives through a Pure Plus filter as a matter of habit.
Children who have beenraised to be creative after first putting in place a Pure Plus filter have a fightingchance of generating profound winning consistently and effectively. It ispredictable, though, that such children (especially the younger ones, who are not yet"wise to the ways of the world") will think it bizarre when people around themcreate their lives after putting in place a plus-MINUS filter. A good parent willwant to teach a child to be sensitive about such matters, at least as long as therecontinue to be so many people walking around who are unwittingly creating themselvesthrough a plus-MINUS filter. It won't do, given their sheer numbers and theprobability of encountering them in public places, to have small children go aroundpointing and saying things OUT LOUD like, "Mommy, look, there's a BIG person who ismaking up a BAD MOOD!"
It will be interestingto see whether such children will eventually lead the rest of the population away fromparticipation in one of the most broadly-damaging forms of human activity on the planet,the "zero-sum game." In any zero-sum game, the pluses and minuses, takentogether, cancel each other out. The most common encounter most of us have with thezero-sum game involves the unfortunate use of the word "but": "You are awonderful person [student, employee, spouse, whatever], but..." The word is a killer, pure and simple. Other than obliterating whateverpreceded it, which more often than not is something drawn from the Plus side of the spectrum, the word serves little useful purpose. For example, it is almost never anagent of accuracy. When people sling their "but's" around, unintendeddevastation of the truth is almost always the result.
I bumped into anacquaintance of mine some time ago in a market. She is a young attorney. Atthe time, she wasn't looking terribly happy, which has always struck me as an oddity inextremely attractive people. I suppose some part of me thinks that, for those gracedwith such things, it would simply take too much work to create unhappiness, that the"default position" would just naturally be joy, even a smug joy. In anycase, she had been working on a creation for some time, the central feature of which washer "conclusion" that her marriage was "one of those 70% things." The reader may have experienced such a judgment being imposed from time to time:"You and I have a wonderful relationship ....BUT..."
Now, anyone who hasever been in a relationship with another person for more than twenty minutes knows thatthe more accurate statement would be: "You and I have a wonderful relationship ... AND it's the worst one I have ever seen!" In other words, as an astute person will notice, ALL the potentials exist in arelationship, moment by moment. A relationship exists, first and foremost, as purepotential, just like any of the individual participants. Neither a person nor arelationship is a "thing," uncomfortable as that may be for those who have acertain preference for "certainty" and "predictability" in life. Yet, human creative power being what it is, once a person declares a relationship"a 70% thing," that declaration will take on a "reality." Without a willingness to create it differently, it will always show up like a 70% thing. And there will always be"evidence" for that creation, just as there is always evidence for any alternatecreation! Of course, there is never any evidence for the evidence, but that factseems obscure, at best, to those taught that their judgments and evaluations are"real" instead of created!
It would not be myfirst preference to be married to someone who hadn't gotten past this stage ofdevelopment, as it would be difficult to have so much as a great recreational experiencewith such an individual. Another partner might readily co-create such an experienceas "100%"; through her plus-MINUS filter, my attorney friend would most likelyonly "see" 100% of 70%! Unfortunately, as soon as the toxin of Minus isshot into any "interpretation" in life, the result will always be something which is "a little bit pregnant" withMinus. My friend will have to begin to see life from a different place if happinessis ever to be a real possibility for her. I suspect she is able to "judge"herself happy 70% of the time, more or less, given the holographic nature of these things. It is possible to get a pretty good reading on the percentage of Plus and Minus ina person's habitually-used filter by asking a few questions ("How is yourrelationship? Your day? Your health? How was breakfast?"), and then taking anaverage!
At the moment that myfriend can create her current relationship as 100% wonderful, a new world will open up toher. At that moment, for example, she would be able to choose whether to keep it or move on to another. Of course,people regularly leave their relationships. There is a huge difference, though,between leaving a relationship as a creative act and departing as a reactive act. When people do the latter, they are much more likely to fall into some "the grassmust be greener elsewhere" scenario. When they arrive at the next place, theyeventually discover that it "looks" the same there, too. Of course it does! They are still peering out at life through thesame filter!
It is in exactly thissense that life's content, the stuff on the other side of the filter, can become tooimportant to a person. When people say they have "lost themselves," thisis what they are referring to. The only "self" they ever had to lose,really, was the part of them which was able - andwilling - to createin life's presence. A caricature of the devolution from creative to reactive can, onoccasion, be seen in the image of the tourist-photographer. Actually,"photographer" is exactly what they arenot, since aphotographer is a person consciously and deliberately creating images. "Tourist-picture-taker" would be more accurate. Their camera almostbecomes their excuse for not being fully present during their stay in life, their way ofinsulating themselves. One suspects that, when they get home and view the prints,they will not only wonder who took some of the particular shots, but also why they werenot, themselves, in the picture! One wonders why they bother to take off the lenscap. Of course, sometimes they don't.
A particularly wisemother of my acquaintance once commented that she had realized she could either takepictures of her children or play with them. Not that the two arenecessarily mutually exclusive. The issue, though, is not keeping such things"in balance" (as though that could be "measured" any better than arelationship can be!). ALIVENESS lives in the question, "What do you really want, what relationship would you love to create with your child (or relationship, or career,etc.)?" This question casts the one asking it into the role of passionateparticipant, instead of dispassionate observer. Or, at a very minimum, it opens thedoor to such possibilities. Interestingly, it is often the "dispassionateobserver" who appears "passionate" in life. If youlook closely, though, their "passion" is usually anger, sadness, or frustrationat the particular manner in which life is insisting they participate. It might besaid that dis-passionate is to passionate as dis-ease is to ease.
A person who islooking "over there," to the stuff on the other side of the filter, to tell themhow their life is going or how they should participate with it, is living in jail. No matter that the jail is of their own making, they will "feel" confined. With the exception of those moments when life "fits their pictures," lines up inaccordance with some mental construct, their aliveness, their passion, will be aderivative of Minus. A person can arrive at destinations such as depression and illhealth when they employ this ducat, but their train doesn't stop at joy orsatisfaction. Or, in the event that it does, it will not be in the station longenough for them to get off, let alone take up residence! When it appears that life'scontent actually can dictate to us what is possible in its presence, the meaning of theword "responsibility" is savaged. At that moment, it can only appear thatlife's content has the creative power and is "responsible" for what happensaround us.
The loss, though, isnot simply of a "sense of responsibility" for what is happening aroundourselves. It is much worse than that. Instead of noticing the degree to whichwe are, in fact, astonishingly creative beings, most people think they are actually limited to the possibility "react (respond) well to life." In fact, there is too much life out there to react well to all of it. Thealternative - the only alternative - is to create in life's presence. Of course, if you think about it, youwill notice that any reaction is also a creation, though it seldom appears to be. Itmight be said that a "reaction" is a creation which does not look likea creation. People are heard to say, for example, "I didn't think, I justreacted." Relatively speaking, there are always more options which can be created in the presence of life's circumstances than there areavailable "reactions." The reactions available are simply a subset of thefull range of creative possibilities.
Instead of developinginto fully responsible (creative) beings, people attempting to react well become merely"response-able." Such people try with all their might to be"competent," which can become totally preoccupying. The task isimpossible, as it requires more capacity than any individual could ever have. Again,there is far too much life out there, too much content, to "manage" all of itwith any degree of success. The recently coined word "proactive" is anattempt to deal with the limitations we place upon ourselves when we fail to"own" our own creativity.
In addition to "the impossibilityfactor" of the reactive posture into life, there is a tendency for any reactionto "add mass" to already-existing realities. This is unfortunate if thealready-existing reality is, or even appears to be, unwanted. Often, the only wayout of the unwanted is the deliberate choice to create what istruly wanted. If a person is unaware of the full range of creative options, therecan be a sense of being "boxed in," having limited choices. My friend whoattempted suicide nearly created his own death when he unconsciously participated in thisprocess. It goes without saying that othershave killedthemselves in this manner. People who commit suicide, for instance, are (among otherthings) declaring their belief that they have no better options, let alone wonderfuloptions. This is a classic example of "not playing with a full deck," asit fails to hold options such as "the miraculous."
In simple fact, everyperson on the planet has each and every card which exists in a full deck. They maybe unaware of this critical fact, for one reason or another. At a minimum, mostpeople are not taught to think of themselves as pure potential first and "thing"second. For example, children "described" (created) by parents, teachersand friends as "fat" or "not very bright," are likely to eventuallybuy into that "definition" of who they are. It may take them years, ifthey get to other possibilities at all, to notice that they can also create themselves asphysically fit or brilliant. In any case, it is unlikely that most of us will everexperience the full range of possibilities which lie dormant in us. Of course, giventhe nature of some of those potentials, it is certainly just as well that we do not experiencethem. That does not mean the potentials are not there, though!
One of life's greatchallenges is to learn how to live with all the potentials we have. I recently wastold about a fellow who had punched his wife in the face. He was determined, evenafter that fact, to deny that the possibility "violence" really does live in him, as it lives in every human being. He had, after all,"never done anything like that before." In his system, then, "she" mustsomehow have been responsible. She had no doubt "made him angry," and also"made him violent," per the discussion above. In truth, he created himself being angry, which is seldom one of life's senior choices. He followed that creation with his extraordinarily stupid, to vastly understate thematter, choice of the creation "hit." It goes without saying that thisfellow's use of his creative power is hardly an exception among humans, which is thereason Scripture suggests we not throw stones in the presence of such creations as these.
This usually-gentleperson, almost anyone would say, was "well-educated." At some futurepoint, people will not be considered well-educated until they are, at a very minimum,aware of the potentials which reside in them. It is simply insufficient, for purposeof functioning in life, to be aware of mere subject matter and activity potentials, suchas those which exist in mathematics, literature, music, or the human body, without beingaware of the full range of human potential itself! As society, we taught this fellow to live in denial of his very own potentials. We set him up to eventually "surprise" himself, as well as horrify andshame himself at damage he had done. (He will, I suspect, eventually own up to, takeresponsibility for, the fact that he was, indeed, the one who, from his own point of view,created the damage!) Had he been taught from a very early age that every humanbeing, including himself, has the "violent" card, as well as all the others, hemight have thought through how he wanted to "be" with regard to that potential.
He will probably nowgo through the difficult, sometimes excruciating process so many people - men andwomen, of course - must eventually pass through. We call it "coming to termswith" one or another of the unpleasant (or worse) potentials which reside inourselves and others. It is mandatory that we begin to teach people that they are not"things." It will be worthless, or worse, if this fellow simply"concludes" that he is, after all, a violent "thing," just as it iscounterproductive for his wife to think of herself from now on as a "thing"which "brings out violence in men" (which was the tunnel she was heading downwhen she and I began speaking). If that is as far as they get with the matter, theywill probably spend the rest of their lives "resisting being bad again." Given the tendency for resistance to add mass to an unwanted reality ("you get whatyou resist"), they will probably lock themselves into the cycles ofpeace-violence-peace-violence that so many are now in.
The moment peoplerealize they really do have a particular negative potential, they at least have the option of choosing not toplay that card inthe future. Of course, such a "choice" can only show up like a"commitment"; it does not assure they will never play the card again. Inother words, a human choice does not turn a person into a "thing," either. For myself, I would much rather be around people who know theirpotential for violence and are well aware they prefer not toengage in it. In my experience, the latter group of people is flatly safer to bearound than those self-righteous sorts who lead with phrases like "I wouldnever..." There is much greater strength in a genuine prayer along the lines of"I hope I never..."
The notion that humanshave all the potentials, each at 100%, might be calledTHE LAW OF MULTIPLE 100%'s. It suggests that our choices, the things we create from day to day, are of vastly greater importance than the merefact that any particular potential exists in us, whether or not that potential hasactually ever manifested around us. This opens whole new possibilities for humaninteraction. For example, the fact that a person holds a card called"depressed" need no longer be interacted with as though they were a depressedthing. Instead, the relatively simply discussion can proceed along the lines of,"Okay, you now know you have that potential, and that you can play that card, createthat reality, at any point in time. How aware are you of your other potentials,especially the ones you would actually prefer to create? If you are unaware of thelatter, let's get on with the process of discovering them in yourself." In theabsence of this type of self-knowledge, and this type of discussion, life can be anamazingly, and unnecessarily, difficult place to be!