Presence and choice

Tuesday, February 8, 2022

6:20 a.m. I have no idea what we should talk about today. No idea of mine, no sense of yours. But I will set my switches, and we’ll see.

The process of setting your switches to remember those priorities would in itself be valuable even if nothing more flowed from it. Remembering to be present, for example: If you are not present, you are – what? Somewhat present? Intermittently present? That doesn’t do you much good. Since by the nature of life you have to be here, you might as well be here. Participate. That doesn’t say what you will concentrate on: It will be certain things for some, others for others. But it does maximize your chances of profiting from your experience in 3D.

Claro. So what do we talk about today?

You haven’t done any real work recently. Are you all right with that?

I don’t feel any burning frustration, if that’s what you mean. I’m okay with having spent the time doing other things.

Excellent. And would you be okay with leaving undone the things you might still accomplish?

I am at the moment, anyway.

Again, excellent. Surprised?

A little. I would have at least half-expected you to remind me that the bird is on the wing.

But Omar [Khayyam] the tentmaker was himself a great lover of wine and song, and as it turned out, it didn’t detract from his life – to put it mildly. Perhaps Omar didn’t come into 3D life to be a tentmaker. But he may have thought he was goofing off, when he was most precisely on the beam.

Gurdjieff again, saying that our doodles may turn out to have been more the point of our life than the phone calls we made while doodling.

The point is to be present. What you decide to do  when present is up to you, always. And of course “up to you” is a more complicated matter than may appear. It involves all layers of yourself, potentially, and everything and everyone you connect to, potentially. It isn’t just what you are consciously aware of, making your decisions (even if they are sometimes decisions to drift).

By extension of that logic, though, why isn’t it just as valid to drift through life as to strive to be present?

Who says it isn’t? But “valid” is not the same thing as “desirable.” For some combination of traits and heredity, it may be preferable; for others, intolerable. You are – which?

Seems to me I’m a little of both. I am driven to accomplish something, and I am also prone to drift.

Welcome to the human condition. Just such contradictory tendencies are what allow you – in a way, require you – to choose. Those areas of your life that do not contain contradictory tendencies tend to be accepted as given. They are not arenas of choosing. You may choose to go against such uncontradicted  tendency, but, chances are, it won’t even occur to you. The things one tends to notice are those presenting the opportunity of choosing – which means, those that include within themselves conflicting tendencies.

Clear as you say it. Obvious, even.

Many things need only to be expressed to be recognized. That doesn’t mean it is without value to express them. So let us ask you again, in a slightly different way: Between purpose and drift, which would you prefer to embrace?

The question is ambiguous. If you mean at any given moment, I’d have to say, “It depends.” It’s like asking “Which you?”

Truer than you know. Or?

If you mean as a life-goal, as a third-tier decision, clearly I’d prefer to have accomplished something than to drift.

Remember the question you put to the author.

I do, smiling. I asked who she had envisioned as her audience, and she said, after a moment, taken aback by a question she had never considered, “Everybody.” I asked her if she had ever tried to aid a gun in 360 degrees at the same time. Something like that.

There’s the analogy. To have accomplished “something” is like aiming at everybody. You can’t aim at “something.” You need to aim at a specific something. What you aim at is up to you; we merely point out that aim is required, if your efforts are not to be random.

Interesting. I am very aware that this time you are using me mostly as a theoretical example; what you are demonstrating doesn’t have all that much to do with me as an individual. It is a lesson I have learned.

It has to do with you in this: We are helping you realize that in fact you have learned it, and learned to apply it. We tell you what you haven’t yet done often enough, God knows; no harm in pointing out, by contrast with a theoretical problem, an area you have succeeded in. Because if you had not absorbed that lesson, you see, you would not be able to accept a period of drift without remorse, without angst. How many days ago was it that you were in just that condition?

We tend to think (or anyway I do) that change is something that takes a long time.

Yes and no. It may build for a long time, may even manifest only over a long time, but a decision is always in an instant. Change can be as instant as turning on a light. What confuses things is that often enough a change is immediately cancelled by a reversion, then alternates for a while. But if that doesn’t happen, if you make a change and don’t half-repent it, you can turn on a dime.

So in my case I suppose we can say I choose purpose and drift.

In practice, most people do, because it could be restated as effort and relaxation. Seen that way, it is not a contradiction but a reciprocating process, as so often.

Like being present?

Actually, yes, on the practical level. Not on the second-tier or third-tier level.

I see that. Hemingway’s purpose was set: to be a great writer by using his gifts to be aware of everything going on around him – but he also played hard; that is, he deliberately spent time not working, so that the bowstring would not lose its strength by being permanently stretched.

It would be a poor symphony that consisted of one note, played without interruption or variation. Nobody could live that way. That’s one function the need for sleep fulfills, by the way: Every wakening may be a new reset.

So is this all we’re up to, this morning, reassuring people that it’s okay to drift and that whatever they choose is okay?

Did we say that? Whatever one chooses is within one’s right to choose; that doesn’t mean that whatever is chosen is best. (If it did, why bother choosing?) At the same time, it doesn’t mean there is only one valid path. (If there were, then you would be back to one path and every conflicting choice is error – sin.)

Then, to put it a little less paradoxically than saying yes but no?

“Yes but no” is often the truest answer, because so many things depend not so much upon their intrinsic value as upon the context within which they are seen, and the vantage point from which they are seen. What looks good now (here), looked at from here, may not look good at another time (then), looked at from a different place. Judgments are always provisional. That is, true judgements are.

I hear “life more abundantly.”

You heard the conclusion without having heard the intermediate steps. Life is less about result than about process, because really the result is the process; the result is the habit-pattern (the mind) that results from a lifetime’s decisions. Keeping your judgments provisional is one more step toward widening your effective sphere of action, hence, life more abundant.

I see. So today’s theme is what? “Choosing”?

Perhaps better, “Presence and choice.”

Yes, I agree. Okay, thanks for all this. And something else you want to add? (For that’s the feeling I get.)

We remind you all: You are free and can live that freedom, only remember that proceeding along the lines of your composition is the most fulfilling freedom. You may, if you wish, go against what you are, and perhaps for some that will be worthwhile, occasionally or even Otten. But mostly you will find that you will be the most satisfied by finding who you really are, and really want to be, and expressing that. Oddly enough, you can’t necessarily do that by drifting. Oddly enough, sometimes drifting is exactly what is indicated. Verb. Sap. [The Free Dictionary defines this as a shortening of the Latin phrase “verbum sapienti sat est,” or a word to the wise is sufficient.]

Don’t call me a sap! Smiling. Till next time, then, and again, thanks.