WHAT DO YOU REALLY WANT?
Chapter Four
Pure Plus and the "Creative" Possibility
The theoretical question which arises is: "Is there a relationship between what we can or cannot imagine and the results which are most likely to show up around us in our lives?" One phrase which points to this issue is "self-fulfilling prophecy." It is clear that what we see, or fail to see, will not necessarily determine any given outcome. Yet, if the images we permit around us, or encourage around us, play even the slightest role in what ultimately occurs around us, it becomes more than a little important to expand our imaginations to include the Pure Plus range of options. It may also be appropriate to choose not to dwell on images of the unwanted. Of course, seen through a Pure Plus filter, an image we think of as "unwanted" may take on a different character. For example, despite the fact that such an image does not "fit our pictures," it may eventually contribute to or otherwise forward a reality which is wanted. In religious terms, this is the suggestion that God can use anything in furtherance of His purpose.
There is nothing wrong with showing our children "inspiring" movies, for example, rather than movies which contain such things as "purposeless violence." Yet we go too far when, from a "human" point of view, we assert too solidly that something will serve no positive purpose. Such assertions, made because we are looking through a filter tainted with Minus, simply affirm (create) the apparency of a negative reality. In the same way, a label such as "conflict" can get in the way of what might otherwise be available, or perhaps simply mask something positive which might be occurring.
I recently had quite an argument with a good friend. Well, maybe it was "really" just a disagreement. Or perhaps it was "actually" an extremely useful discussion. Many people who were listening to us probably thought we were arguing. At one point, my friend suggested we "disagreed" which, of course, we certainly did, at least on a superficial level. I have known this friend for many years. We have often discussed matters which have been extremely important to us. His point of view has contributed to me immeasurably. As I think about it, "immeasurably" is quite an understatement. Has it always, though, appeared that what was emerging was useful, even a profound contribution? Of course not. Earlier in our lives, I even recall a time when he "hurt my feelings." (I will stop just short of saying he "made me angry!")
In other words, there was a time when I was powerless in the face of his comments. That was before I was aware of the issue of filter, though. Once I knew I could choose a filter, it became available to (a) choose a Pure Plus filter even as he was speaking and (b) begin to look immediately for what contribution might be emerging. At the very least, it seems to me that I wasted a great deal of time creating his comments as negative. I also had to deal with the byproducts: "feeling bad" that he would say "something like that," "being depressed," and many of the other things I would never have chosen if I had known I had a choice. You may have noticed my "assertion" (creation) that I had "wasted time" in this process. That, of course, would not be the most senior creation available if I were willing to look at my time usage through a Pure Plus filter! As another of my friends suggests, "If milk spills, look for the cat."
When I suggested that we needn't call our conversation a "disagreement," my friend immediately saw what I was suggesting. For many people, "disagreement" is so aversive that they will avoid it at great cost. In the process, they may even go as far as to avoid people who might "disagree" with them. What would it be like for those same people to walk around in life creating the universe as a supportive, instead of an attacking, place? Instead of retreating further and further from full participation in life, they might even welcome it. My friend mentioned to me that, in his recent experience, "disagree" was such a mild word. Of course, his recent experience had included nearly three years in law school!
Yes, "disagree" is "relatively" mild. Such words, nevertheless, intervene between people and the most joyous experience available in life. At the extreme, such words are killers. Moods, days and weeks, relationships, and jobs (to name just a few) regularly succumb to the realities which begin with these words we have been taught. These words, born of the plus-MINUS reality, are death-dealing. This is not to suggest that death, itself, must be seen through a Minus or plus-MINUS filter. Rather, it is to suggest that profound winning is possible in life, and that the words which come out of our mouths play an absolutely critical role in determining the primary creation ("Plus" or "Minus") in which we find ourselves participating during our lives. Heaven on earth. Hell on earth. Words must be chosen with great care and, ideally, after careful consideration of the issue of filter.
It is interesting to consider whether it is ever to our advantage to utilize a Minus or plus-MINUS filter. Do we somehow "need" what can be seen, darkly, through such a glass? Once, while I was sitting in a restaurant I frequent, a young waitress accused me of "ALWAYS being in a good mood." She was new there, and did not know me very well. She had been there long enough, though, to have observed me on a number of occasions, and to have formed an opinion. And there was definitely accusation in her tone. I did not ask what bothered her about that. Rather, I suggested that human beings, myself included, are not "things," and assured her that I was absolutely as capable of creating a rotten mood as anyone on the planet. I added that I suspected she probably had not yet had the time to have created the variations on that theme which I had already achieved.
I then shared with her what I had been thinking at the moment she had spoken. My children had been taking music lessons with a young friend. I had recently heard the friend's older sister, age 12, play at a piano concert ... a marvelous pianist, a beautiful child with perhaps the longest, straightest dark black hair I had ever seen. She had become dehydrated during the past week and had gone into the hospital. Overnight, she developed pneumonia and died. My entire family was quite in shock about the news, and greatly saddened. I explained to the waitress that it was a challenge for me to deal with such an event in life and that I was, in fact, having some difficulty with it. (Like anyone else, I occasionally pick up a filter tainted with Minus, as I was taught to do, and as was certainly my habit for many years. As I sat there looking through that filter, I had not yet gotten to the point of putting it down in favor of a better choice.)
I told her that such events still presented a sufficient degree of difficulty, given my current stage of development, to require every bit of creativity I've got. When I am attempting to contend with such things in life, there is not enough of me left over to simultaneously contend with my own creation of a lousy mood! Not to mention the difficulty I would most likely face in having to deal with how others might show up around me if I began generating such a creation!
"Life" can be tough enough to deal with. It makes no sense to add the impediment of choosing to view the content through a negative filter! To do so can turn what might only be difficult-to-clear hurdles into rather massive brick walls. People talk about their ability to do this or that with one hand tied behind their back. Life's difficult moments, though, are no time to bind one's being, one's creative potential, to a boat with holes in the hull. An extremely instructive example of this is to be found in Scripture, when Peter was invited by Jesus to walk across the water to Him. Peter immediately looked through a filter tainted with Minus and began to sink! Jesus pointed out to him that he would have to see life from a different place to move from "Point A" to "Point B" with any degree of success. For people looking at life through a Minus-tainted filter, "walking on water" has become synonymous with the impossible. Unfortunately, much of what we are asked to deal with shares something fundamental in common with "walking on water." Impossibility is often what appears most probable.
You can use any analogy or other characterization you wish: camels trying to get through eyes of needles, "terminal" illnesses, "hopeless" situations, "overwhelming" odds. Circumstances may not work out in the way you want them to and/or when you want them to. The issue is simple, though. Looking through a Minus-tainted filter is unlikely to be of much assistance to you and, as a creative act, it may energize precisely the reality which is unwanted.
I was once participating in a "win-win mediation" with some very "sophisticated" people. They were all quite a bit older than I was. Their bankers had insisted they spend a bit of time with me, given the "cost" of their "conflict." They were polite, in their way, but also what might be called patronizing. They assured me that "win-win" only applies to "simple" cases. Their situation was, of course, "complex." In other words, it would be impossible to have everyone win in a situation such as theirs. I commented that I knew enough about them to "assess" their chances of a genuine win-win result at about a million to one. They clearly liked that. (I think it fit their self-images as tough, macho sorts of people.) I added that I had seen the win-win possibility manifest in more difficult circumstances. Which was not, of course, to say that they would produce such a result out of our working together. I reminded them of the substantial costs to them, even beyond dollars, of continuing in the lose-lose paradigm. (You may have noticed that "win-lose" is a myth: if you and I are "in conflict," I will not win on any level of satisfaction unless you do, also.) Their health would continue to suffer; their families would continue to be impacted; and their lives would continue to be about the mess they were in, since such messes always hang around, in one form or another, until everyone is winning.
I asked, then: "If you actually do have one chance in a million, is there anything else you would really rather go for? They became absolutely silent. It later seemed to me that the "mediation" actually completed in that moment. If I were to attempt to describe what occurred, I would simply say that each of them glimpsed what life might look like through a Pure Plus filter. In that instant, each of them accepted the challenge on a very deep level. After that, it was just a matter of putting the pieces in place. At the moment a person holds a positive possibility in the presence of any "reality," that person will begin to consider options consistent with the reality which is really wanted. Even if those options could be seen through a plus-MINUS or Minus filter, no one is looking for them!
After a person puts in place a Pure Plus filter, life's options immediately increase. Through a Minus or plus-MINUS filter, one never sees the full range of options. Sometimes it can be absolutely vital to see a wider range of options than a person is seeing in a given moment. When we create a reality in which our options are limited, the possibility of death, literally, is a frequent consequence. Of course, there are also the "lesser" consequences, such as ruined days, stress, and the havoc wreaked upon our health, our relationships, and everything else people value.
Depending upon our choice of filter, we might say that my friend who attempted suicide "failed" in his attempt. In the alternative, we might assert that he "succeeded" in jarring himself out of a hopeless existence and in the direction of the miraculous life which has since unfolded before him. Whatever we might now create about his earlier circumstances, it can accurately be said that he had to "live" in the negative reality he created for himself during the time he peered out at life through his negative filter. He lived in that reality, moment by moment, until he finally noticed the alternative, which was also easily within his creative range. He, like the rest of us, was unlikely to generate winning in life without taking part in the creative process which produces winning. The creative process which generates winning begins with a person's choice of a Pure Plus filter.
Once such a filter is chosen, a person can enter the domain of profound winning through any door, even "disagreement," "conflict," or "I don't like how [it] is right now." Seen from this place, any event, circumstance or other element of life can be held as pure gift or, for those who prefer religious languaging, God's grace. This opens the door to the possibility "Praise the Lord in all things," an instruction which is found throughout Scripture. Unless one is looking through a Pure Plus filter, it seems absurd to praise God in all things. The issue of filter is the reason people think the Bible is "inconsistent." It seems nonsensical, for example, to be at praise of the very things the Bible suggests people not participate in. I heard one minister who asserted, in essence, that any time we describe life as viewed through a Minus filter, we are "praising the devil." At a minimum, it is difficult to follow an instruction like "Praise the Lord in all things" if one has, in effect, first declared God's absence by putting a Minus-based label (such as "conflict") on events in life!
Oddly, it is often those who are trying the hardest to "do right" whose lives often seem most dominated by "wrong." When I say "dominated by," I mean that Minus seems ever-present around them. They tend to constantly decry things they "see" (create) as negative, and spend great amounts of time telling people what they should not be doing. This group tends to be of very little use when it comes to suggesting what people should do with their lives. They are, in short, resisting "losing" instead of creating winning. For example, they are likely to be encyclopedic in listing movies people should avoid, but put no major energy into listing (or, better, creating) movies they deem inspiring. Similarly, they can describe in detail the problematic aspects of difficult issues such as abortion but, unlike Mother Teresa, they do not simply say: Give birth to the child and then bring it to me ... I will see that it is well cared for. For them, Minus is a turnip from which they are attempting to squeeze blood. When God said, "...I have set before you life and death ... therefore choose life," He did not say, "Focus exclusively on death and try to squeeze life from it!" This is precisely the issue raised by the well-known motto of the Christopher Society: "It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness." One of the truly ironic things which can be observed in life is that those who engage their negative filter and then curse the "darkness" they "see" are often the ones full of advice to others such as, "Don't curse!" No wonder that they lack credibility, that their children grow up thinking them hypocrites, despite the fact they truly have "tried hard" to "do the right thing in life!"
It would be wonderful, I expect, if each of us could totally master the issue of filter. Pending such a development, which is likely to require a great deal of work for each of us, we are likely to continue "seeing" life, from time to time, through a Minus filter. When that happens, though, there are alternatives which are not only senior to, but more useful than, "resisting" or otherwise power struggling with Minus. For example, every "Minus" points in the direction of some "Plus." In other words, something unwanted is in some fashion a negative image of something which truly is wanted. It is available for us to stop, when we see something in its Minus aspects, and look for the implicit thing or things which are wanted. We might then be able to address the ways in which we might create, add mass to, the wanted. At a minimum, this tends to be much more useful, in terms of what it produces in form, than doing things like resisting the unwanted. There is, after all, at least some truth to the statement "you get what you resist."
Resisting a reality is only one of the thousands of ways in which we add mass to what we do not want. Despite our assertion that we do not want the reality, we are bringing to it such things as our beings and our energy, in effect using up the very substance of our lives. If I so much as focus on something I do not like about you, for instance, a great deal of time may pass before there is a clear statement of precisely what I do want. People have spent literally years in such "discussions," without ever shifting the focus to what is wanted. This is the classic "tunnel with no cheese." Entire professional fields have developed which are designed to "manage" unwanted realities simply because no one is taking responsibility for cleanly determining which realities are wanted, and then empowering them! I suppose a person could say that it takes a "professional" to manage the unwanted. This pursuit is, after all, more than a full-time job!