Classroom Talk
Spring - Summer 2002 Archive
Some grandfatherly advice on "fighting fair." Posted by Coach John on May 02, 2002 at 15:52:55:
You won't be expelled from class for this, but . . .
You just don't get it, Douglas. There has never been any kind of valentine in history that could make a person who isn't in love with you be in love
with you. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. I've had my heartaches, too, over this one (more than my necessary share, maybe) and I think I know
the way it is being for you now. I've tried that valentine stuff, too, until the door was finally slammed in my face. Damn! I wish it weren't that way,
but it is.
Being in love either happens naturally, with no manipulation, or it doesn't. And if it doesn't happen, no philosophy, no psychology, no religion, and no
spiritual teaching can force being in love with you to happen. You can waste your whole life fighting against this reality, but all you do by that is dig
your Self deeper into a Heffalump trap, ensure your own isolation, drive away your friends who get tired of hearing about it, and prolong and
exacerbate your own suffering about it.
On the other person's side of it: getting repeated valentines from someone they aren't in love with who persistently wants them to be in love with
them in spite of their own reality to the contrary . . . is upsetting and wounding, possibly aggravating—a stinger, that inevitably brings violent retorts
and drives the other one even farther away, until even friendship and collegial teamwork slips away and becomes impossible. And having that
unwanted valentine read aloud in public is very unfair. It is, in fact (judgment though it may be) just plain abusive to all of us who have to hear it.
>Not to hijack the agenda here but let me just
No. That *is* hijacking the class, and I appeal to you to stop doing that.
>This may not be in the territory of this Classroom yet I would certainly appreciate it if someone could set down the rules and regulations of a fair fight
This is NOT a class in learning how to fight fair. I have nothing to teach you about that. This is a class in learning how to stop fighting, and
discovering the benefits of that.
The closer you get to success, the more you seem to need to fail. The more that I, and Perk, and your classmates here would try to be loving and
friendly with you, and relate with you as an esteemed professional colleague and team-mate, the less regard you seem to have for the feelings of the
rest of us, and the more you seem compelled to shit on us.
I've grown to love you over the years, Douglas, as much so as anyone in this class. I laughed heartily at your "I cannae hear ye!" joke. I empathize
with you in many ways—many times with tears in my eyes. I've made some of the same mistakes . . . and suffered my share for it, too. I feel sad for
your sufferings. But I do not like to be treated the way you go on treating me and your classmates, in the automatic reacting you are doing to this
painful time in your life. I wish you'd be a mindful warrior with it—take some responsibility—instead of acting-it-out on the rest of us this way. I feel
very bad if what I am saying here is painful to you. But to bullshit you about this would be an even greater injustice to everyone involved, including
you.
Except that it has always apparently been highly contentious in what I've seen of it, I know little about your past private relatings with your classmate,
and I don't care to know either. It's none of my business! Don't post any more about it here in Classroom Talk. I mean that. It isn't fair to any of us
that you perpetuate this distraction from our collegial efforts—especially where you take absolutely no responsibility for it. And I don't even care to
hear about that, either, at this point! Again, I mean that. I've heard enough!
The only way for you to be "fair" to the other people around you here—in my opinion, since you asked—would be to take the responsibility to nurse
your own wounds, and get over it—find professional help in healing what needs healing if that can help—and, if you are to be with us in our
collaborative efforts from this point forth, start stepping aside from ego-driven personality (as the Self-ishness of all of us is described in these classes),
put the past behind you, cheerfully, and start stepping forth on a great new kind of life on your own with the rest of us in this class.
Coach
Even your truly sophisticated recognition that Husserl's phenomenological reduction was, in fact, germaine and personally inspiring to me, in the
formative stages of the awareness game (Perk's closing note on the similarities described that compatibility perfectly!), and even feeling you have been
profoundly influenced by R. D. Laing (whose work I'm not that familiar with) is of absolutely no value whatsoever to anyone—sad to say—until one
starts implementing the mindful practices that such intellectual formulations are based upon. Tragically, in some people's cases, the intellectual
understanding of it *is* the booby prize . . . and may, if they don't wake up and realize that, be all that they ever get.
Without stumbling onto the ideas in Husserl's phenomenological reduction in my own intellectual researches years ago, it's very possible that I'd have
never come up with the present *form of how the awareness game is played*. It was my inspiration for that! How about that, Douglas? You were *
that* right-on in your research finding here! Bravo! But, without doing that very phenomenological work on my Self over the years (and still more
growth and change, of course, to be done), the non-existence of this awareness game approach would be an absolute certainty. Unless these
intellectual formulations are actively put into *aware daily practice in Being*, nothing changes, there is nothing new, and nothing is ever gained.
Understanding it intellectually only, without practicing doing it . . . no one gets to play . . . no one gets to make up their own new game to play.
Everyone goes on being the same-old same-old bag of personality routines that they grew up conditioned to be.
Yes! That could be our theme for the remaining eight months of this Sixth Grade: "Letting go of that same-old same-old funny stuff, and learning to
make up our own new games to play." Get yer daffodils ready, Kiddies! Ready . . . set . . . . .
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Archived 08/26/2002