Classroom Talk
Fall 2002 Archive
Here I am being a flake again! Posted by John {wide grin} on December 04, 2002 at 17:05:50:
Here I am being a flake again! I love it when I can share my own foibles in responding to the questions that visitors post here. We are all human. We
all have our ways of making our own lives harder than they have to be. And "being a flake" is one of these.
So, hello Barbara, Sally, Eddie, "Dennis," Rob, anyone who may be around now . . . . .
Rob, I lost your current phone number. Would you e-mail it to me, please, so I can return your call last week? I'm okay, getting through it one day at
a time . . . and wishing you all well!
Here I am being a flake again—coming from the passive side of our personality wheel—and up steps Sally, who has more strength than me (even in the
face of insurmountable obstacles in her life right now) . . . up steps Sally, coming from essential Can-Do warrior strength . . . kindly helping (in keeping
the class going for awhile, while I am flaking out), and takes over here for me for awhile.
So, let me respond to "What is a flake?" first, and then to Sally's encounters with the "Not so Kind Helper," and then "Dennis's" question about what
has an old guy like me got to show for it from this kind of training. Let's see if I can get my body out of being a flake for awhile here now today.
To me, being called a flake, means to be dismissed by the other person as a "light-weight," a "flake." The image that comes to me of "a person who is
flaking out" is of me lying on a mat watching television. I'm not up and getting to it. I'm not *getting it done*. I'm not "doing what I'm supposed to
do." I'm flaking out. I'm being a flake.
Now, in my experience of it, the most common reason a person is called a flake is because they have been undependable, in the other person's eyes.
"You flaked out on me. You weren't dependable." Being a flake is being "unaccountable." Nobody can hold you accountable when you are being a
flake, but it sure can frustrate and aggravate some people around you—those people who *are* depending on you.
People may get angry and call you "a flake" if you haven't delivered on what you were supposed to do, and *especially* if you haven't followed
through on what you promised them.
For instance, don't promise to get together with friends unless you really do it. Don't promise to call again soon and then let a long time go by without
calling. If a person who is a flake catches on to what being a flake is in these ways, it is possible that they will wake up on it when they are doing it,
and realize they can get get off being a flake. That ought to create some improvement in their lives, in terms of inner peace and harmony with others.
If they have the presence of mind—which mindfulness training can bring—they can either not make promises they know they aren't going to keep, or
else they can embark on a new life of keeping their promises, as well as they are able. Learning mindfulness practice can be a great help in doing this.
This is what is called "transcending our conditioned personality," or "doing transformative work." The rewards for being able to recognize and
becoming able to step aside from being a flake, are, first, that you stop hurting your friends by making promises you aren't going to keep. And by
virtue of that, it means happier companionship with others when those meetings do happen, even on a limited, or long-time basis.
Maybe I'm going whacky, but isn't that an "Eddie" e-mail address on that "Student Dennis" posting? Do you think I've gotten tired of your great
questions, Eddie? Did you suppose framing your questions as "a newcomer" would inspire a little energy in me? Heh-heh. Get me out of my
flakiness?
What do I have to show for it after so many years of practicing the things that my first great teacher, Mitsuo Aoki, taught me? Well . . . . . I suppose
the Teachings are plain enough about that . . . . . What I've got to show for it is "nothing special."
How could I express the joy I experienced in spotting that Coatamundi in the desert the other day, and seeing its jumping dance, and the way it didn't
seem to be afraid of me?
How could I tell you how much fun it has been working as a team of us hands, and figuring out, finally, that it was a pair of Ringtailed-Cats that were
finding a way of getting into our aviary and killing and eating our birds. Without harming the Ringtails, we found out the clever way that they had
managed to get in. It was like "seeing Evolution in the animal kingdom." Of all the animals that have passed by in the desert, hungering for our birds,
this was the first of them to figure out a way to get in.
No, I take that back. A bobcat managed to claw a hole in a wire wall there and gobble our dear bunny. We put in a tougher guage wire after that.
That was years ago. And now these wily Ringtails have patiently thought out and searched the only way that they could get in—which is nailed up
tight now, of course. Too bad for the birds they got. They'll have to catch wild birds from now on, just being what they are.
Ah, the things that make my life wonderful to me in my "old age" (I'll be 68 on Christmas Day) would probably actually be "nothing special" to most
other people. I just got a call from that woman I told the class about a few times around Christmastime in past years, an old girlfriend of long ago that
I've been "carrying a torch for" for so long. — Talk about the "flake" syndrome, here's another example of it. She's the one that would call me every
year, just as sweet as ever, have all kinds of hot plans for us on the telephone, like going away together to a cabin in the mountains she was renting,
say she'd call me back in a few days or the following week, and I'd never hear from her again.
For years this used to drive me sort of "crazy" every time it happened, and I'd lose sleep about it. Couldn't get her out of my mind for days—twisting
in the wind, as rejected Rebel/Artists can do, mind filled with obsessive thinking-thinking-thinking about her. I could hardly wait to see her again,
and at the same time, I *knew* that she wasn't going to be calling. (This is the woman I was thinking about, Kiddies, when I fell in love with that Neil
Young song, "Harvest Moon.")
And no sooner do I get hold of a tape of this song (Neil Young with James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt singing back-up—a group they called "The
Stray Gators") . . . . . and no sooner than I *learn to sing it*, driving back and forth to the ranch where I work, *singing it to her* over and over again,
tears in my eyes, as I drive along in the country . . . . . and up she pops again, as if by magic, calling me again. I told her about the song. I said I
wished I could jam on it with her—her on guitar and me on ukelele. She vaguely remembered the song from the title and asked me to sing it to her,
and . . . . . Heh-heh . . . . I was prepared to do so, and did. Talk about "romantic!"
"Because I'm still in love with you,
I wanna see you dance aga-a-ain,
Because I'm still in *love* with you,
On this Harvest Moon . . ."
I'd never been quite able to accept that it wouldn't work for us again, when we could be so darned sweet together in these phone conversations. I
couldn't quite get it through my head that she wouldn't feel the same as me about our trying out getting together again, after I had rejected her so
many years ago. But, obviously and apparently, she just doesn't have it in her to follow through on that.
"When we were strangers,
I saw you from afar.
When we were lovers,
I loved you with all my heart."
To live in the real world now, I have to be understanding, and forgiving. I have to be able to let go . . . let it be!
And when it got to the part of the conversation where she said, "I want to see you, John. I'll call you in a few days, or next week," the place where, in
the past, I would always express ardent urgings to have that meeting take place . . . . . this time, I was calm, and centered, and relaxed about it, and
prepared, as well. "You don't have to call me at all, my Dear," I said to her.
And I meant it. It was sincere. I could tell that blew her mind. And I just left it at that. And this time, I knew that I was finally free. I wasn't
attached to it any more. I was at peace. I understood, at last, and accepted it. I wan't gonna go crazy over her any more. And I slept good that
night. No more obsessive thinking. And I've hardly thought of her at all since then. And I've been peaceful about it when I have. The girl can't help
it. I understand. And I forgive her. Let it be!
This was one of the last and biggest attachments that I've suffered substantially over in recent years. It is little things like this that tell me that I go on
growing in my "old age" that make me feel more and more fulfilled in this old life. Nothing special. I know I've had far, far more than my share of all
the good things that are offered in life. I don't have to be attached to the past. And my life goes on being a mystery. Practicing awareness goes on
being interesting and ever-rewarding to me as I go on seeing how my life keeps turning out. Maybe the best is yet to come.
Sally, Sally. I have always admired how strong you are. For years I was baffled at how it could be that your Fate would find you doing *so much*
helping of others . . . . . not because of kindness, perhaps, and not because of guilty-obligation, either, I don't think—but only because you were there,
and the helping needed to be done, and you were the only one around that was strong enough to keep doing it.
So it is that you can come back here to Classroom Talk—not withstanding all the rest of what you are facing these months—and have the strength to
help in keeping our class alive one more time. Although you are modest about it, this *is* warrior work to me.
But if you are having a hard time these days being the "Not so Kind Helper," . . . . . See? I told you, Eddie, that that was a great nickname for a
complex of behaviors that others could *see themselves in*! . . . . . . If being the Not so Kind Helper isn't being harmonious for you these days, Sally,
tell me a little more about it, if you will, please. What are the characteristics of this syndrome? What *is* a Not so Kind Helper, in your experience of
it?
If you do that, that might give me some more ideas on how to coach you here.
Loving you all! Hanging in with my other job! Back to being "the flake" in Classroom Talk again. Yet, I'm working on it. I'm still here. I do look in
every day to see what's happening. Bear with me awhile longer, and we'll all get through this together.
Hope you all had Happy Thanksgivings, as I did in the midst of Great Nature!
Coach
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