Episode 23 ... Triple Crown (Beating Pressure)

When pressure builds for us to pursue a plan, we’re doomed to fail.

Cring talks about improving our chances–beating the pressure.

TRANSCRIPT

When I first started out, I was a little bit excited about the whole idea of living my own life. After all, for eighteen years, you exist in some sort of co-op—except you don’t have a vote.

When you’re a kid, your vote is considered a complaint. Complain too often and you become a nuisance.

If you decide to persist in becoming a nuisance then you become a brat. Stay bratty and in no time at all, somebody in a courtroom somewhere may call you “incorrigible.” Then you go to another Big House with even bigger guards making bigger demands on your shrinking self.
So needless to say, I was kind of thrilled to get away from my home.

But the glee over the departure was quickly doused by the discovery that I was only allowed to do what I wanted, dreamed of, or believed I was “called into achieving” if I could prove that I had enough money for myself.

Talent has no voice without bucks. When talent has no bucks, it’s “dreamy.” It’s idealistic.It’s irresponsible.

So I was shocked.

Gradually I realized that the whole speech I received in my youth was a well-rehearsed con job by parents all over the world, who had heard it themselves, found out it was crap and decided to get even with their children for being incorrigible by passing the myth along.

I should have seen it coming. All through my school days, there were teachers who stood before me and said, “Now, this is complicated.”

Furrowing their brow and looking very serious, they convinced me that life, work, career, politics, marriage and any one of a number of things were almost incomprehensibly problematic.

As a result, I thought it was smart to be confused, hoping that I seemed deep and cerebral.
It never occurred to me that if it’s complicated, what you want is someone to make it simple—and then dub THAT person “smart.”

I was told by these complicated people that “there was no one like me.” I should “just be myself.”

The first lie. “Be yourself.” Let everyone know who you are and they will then love you for being that person.

Here came the second lie. “There was only one of me.”

But listen. If there’s only one of me, how in the hell am I supposed to mate? It takes two to tango—along with other interesting activities. Am I supposed to sit in the corner with my special self and masturbate?

I quickly discovered that it’s not complicated, and I’m not unique.

Of course, the third lie thrown in there for good measure is, “If you work hard enough, everything will be alright.” We take our young humans and tell them that life is complicated, but go out there and be yourself and if you do that real well and work hard, you’re gonna make it.

Bullshit.

Not only are these lies, but they are vicious lies.

Sometimes they’re lies you can’t even recover from. They push some people into addiction. Other folks become white-collar criminals. And then, there are those who skip the white collar, and go for crime in any shirt.

You can’t screw with people like this.

There is an orderly nature at work. People refer to it as the “Natural Order.” That’s a good name.
It is not inflexible. It doesn’t chop your hand off if you steal, like the Muslim Sharia Law.

But it also does not give you “grace” if you’re stupid, like the mainstream religious denominations of Christianity.

It does two things: it kicks your ass or it leaves you alone.

You probably have figured out—the best choice is to have it leave you alone.

It does not kick your ass because you’re black, Hispanic, white or female. It kicks your ass because you won’t learn what Adam and Eve needed to learn.

Cleopatra.
Alexander the Great.
Julius Caesar.
Thomas Jefferson.
Or Kunta Kinta for those who still remember Roots.

The Natural Order has three requests, and if you find them, there’s a lot of room within the rules. Very simply: you have to agree, you have to decide, and you have to choose.
You have to agree.
You’ve got to decide.
You’ve got to choose.

If you spend your life disagreeable, indecisive, and make no selections, you won’t spend your life.

It’ll be snatched from you and you soon will be just as extinct as the mastodon. (That’s the hairy elephant, right?)

So… Agree about what? Agree on what you love. You need to love something. You need to love someone. That love needs to be true. That love needs to be willing to stand firm. That love needs to be committed. It needs to be affectionate. It needs to endure.

What do you love? You can immediately tell that the world is crazy because it changes lovers all the time.
“This is the person.”
“This is the thing!”
“Over here!”
“Promote this!”

Years and years and years ago, when I saw Star Wars, I liked it but I wasn’t crazy about it. Still, it hung around. It stayed in the theaters for a long time. More and more people saw it. We started to love it.

I believe that’s the only reason it’s around today. If the original Star Wars came out today, it would have two or three weeks of hype and be gone. We don’t seem to love things very long. We lose our attraction.

The first powerful thing that keeps Mother Nature from slapping your face is agreeing on what you love. When you do that, you immediately begin to find other people who agree on the same things. It feels good.

And it does NOT turn you into a cult. But it does let you know you can count on something.

Otherwise you get tricked.

Oh my God, we’re being tricked today. We’re tricked into believing that everything is complicated, so don’t think you’re going to figure it out.

RUN.

Run to the nearest exit, leave the building and don’t look back. Agree on what you love.

The first thing I discovered I loved is that I need to love people. It’s a little bit different from “loving people.” I wish I were so noble that I could say I do love people. But I love the fact that I need to love people.

I can’t sit on my fat ass and criticize people and think that makes me something special. I am compelled to get along.

The Universe screams at me to be the person who does not honk my horn when I’m cut off in traffic.

I love that I need to love people.

Secondly, I love the idea of a loving God.

I’m not always sure that I need a God, but I love the fact that if I need Him or I wonder about Him,

He’s loving.

And I also love that there’s at least one person who notices when I leave a room.

There’s a change in the Force for them. God, that feels wonderful. May I be that to someone else,

You see what I mean? Just those three things there make me soppy wet with good feeling instead of being hard as a rock.

And that’s not even considering what I decide.

Shit, deciding what’s important is knowing what you run back into the house for during a fire.

Deciding what’s important is knowing whether it’s worth the time to actually argue about something.

Deciding what’s important enables you to know that there is actually something important—and this life is not a cosmic joke with no obvious punchline.

So what’s important to me?
1. I don’t want to lie.
I did not say I don’t lie. But lying is the shittiest shit of the ugliest Shit Beast. It’s the worst insult in the world. It’s the beginning of every sin. I don’t want to act like it’s needed. I don’t want to give it a cute name. When someone says it’s “a little white lie” I want to throw black paint on it.
2. I want to finish.
That’s important to me. I’m tired of starting things. Because of that, I’ve begun to not start so many things. And if I get two steps in and it sucks, I don’t act all proud that I’ll drop it like a hot potato. (Do people still drop hot potatoes? I suppose if you threw them one…)
Just to finish. Just to put a period at the end of a sentence instead of all these question marks and ellipses.
Dot Dot Dot …
“To be continued.”
Start showing myself and other people that I’m a finisher.

3. It was hard for me to pick the third one because there’s so much important crap out there, but for me, I think it’s to become a giver instead of a taker.
I want to have enough that I always have one extra to give away, because that’s when I feel powerful. That’s when I feel like a god of my own circumstances—when I have the ability to change events in another person’s life just by giving him or her a dollar bill, a cup of coffee, my place in line or a goddamn smile. Yeah. Good stuff.
So I agree.
And I decide.
And after I’ve gotten all those important values lined up, THEN I can start choosing.
Now I get the chance to be ME. Because I’ve loved, and because I’ve decided, I get to be ME.
Don’t be the poor motherfucker who has no agreement on what he loves and can’t decide on anything but still wants to stomp his feet and protest on how he’s treated.
I know what I love and I decide what’s important. Then I can choose what I like.
I like how it feels to lose weight, but I hate dieting.
I like waking up in the middle of the night, and for ten minutes staring into the darkness, feeling like I’m staying up with God.
I like the burst of energy that tells me I’m not dying of cancer.
I like the feeling right before an orgasm, when you know the payoff is coming but you slow it just a little bit.
I like kissing. (And when it comes to kissing, I like to take it nice and slow. Give lips a chance to do their stuff before you pop in tongue.)
I like some people. I’m learning to like more. As I like more, more like me back. It’s a good system.
I like chicken. But don’t put rosemary on it.
I like teriyaki sauce on almost anything. Including my hand. (I often lick it off.)
There are so many things I like—and I’m allowed to like them. Do you hear that? I’m allowed to have an opinion, because on really everlasting matters, I’ve already agreed to decide.
Don’t trust anyone who thinks things are complicated. Don’t complicate your life by thinking you can “be yourself.”
Don’t try to be yourself until you have a nice conversation with Mother Nature.
And don’t have that conversation with Mother Nature until you’ve agreed, decided and therefore are worthy of choosing.