I was crammed full of "answers".
Mum & Dad gave me all their Answers,
Long before I ever got to formulate my questions ---
"Who am I?" "Where do I come from?" "Why am I here?" "Where am I going to?" "What's best for me to do while I'm here?"
That's not their fault; that's the way the game of being human was set up
Long before they had a chance to have any say in it.
While this setup may not be ideal,
It reflects a truth that I didn't get until my fifth decade --
We already have The Answer;
Our only problem is
We've forgotten what The Question was.
This back-to-front set-up phase is also practical:
At least until we reach a stage
Where we can responsibly think and feel for ourselves.
"Answers-first" gives us a way of surviving and growing
Until we can discard our trainer wheels
And chart our own course.
A problem arises when we don't make that transition.
It seems to be this way for all of us.
Giving answers to life questions, asked and unasked, is what parents do:
It's part of their contribution to setting the game up for us.
The trick in good parenting is setting up the rules of the various games that are played concurrently --
Family, state, spiritual and cultural --
Teaching us how to creatively join in the play
And, as we mature,
How to find and express our individuality, satisfaction and freedom
Within the games.
Where I came unstuck with my Mum & Dad was
I asked questions they were quite sure I shouldn't be asking,
And to which they didn't have answers that sounded plausible, even to them.
That generated Confusion and Anger,
For them and for me.
Another problem with their unasked-for answers,
(And this they had in common with all parents)
Was that the ready-made answers they rolled off the training line
Weren't even theirs;
They had inherited them from their forbears.
Now, it you've ever played the game of Chinese Whisper,
You'll know how limited and unreliable is the process of communicating by passing information verbally from one to another.TT
Yet children unquestioningly go along with what they're taught in word, thought, attitude, mood and deed by their "betters" as if it were "gospel".
I'm damned if I know why but, after a certain point, I just couldn't do that.
It made life very rough and rocky,
Especially with a father whose granite-set motto was
"I am right, and you are wrong."
T
Eventually I raked up enough nerve to tentatively ask some of my own questions,
But I asked them of others, not of myself.
So I launched into marriage and parenthood
Full of shaky answers, values, ideas, concepts, opinions and beliefs --
Most of them umpteenth-hand-me-downs
From people who were just as lost as I was.
I hadn't a clue about any difference between what I believed, and what I knew.
I was so full of "shoulds" rammed into me by parents, relatives, teachers, preachers and, later, self-help gurus
About how I ought to be thinking and feeling
That there was no room in consciousness for real, actual thinking and feeling.
I was following instructions -- "Fake it until you make it."
Unfortunately much of my "knowledge" was at odds with my own experience,
But that remained unchallenged
Because I didn't yet either trust the validity of the trickle of real experience that was leaking through the defences,
Or had I ever met the "me" that was having the experience.
Looking back on it,
It's little wonder that my world and the reality I was living in
Had become so dysfunctional.
I felt like I was trapped in an off-beat orchestra
Where everyone was trying to play someone else's instrument,
To someone else's rhythm
And someone else's music,
Where none of the players were really listening to each other,
Where no-one was hearing their own music,
And no-one was even aware of a conductor.
It was a right cacophony!
Here was I, looking for The Answer,
While my head was full of synthetic answers
For which I hadn't yet formed authentic questions.
The experiences I was having were the answers
To questions I hadn't more than the vaguest notion of.
I was into my 50's before I got a handle on this stuff
And set out to discover my questions --
The questions for which I already had my answers,
And questions that could kick-start my life
Into a direction that would work better for me.
Answers that relate to conscious questions we're standing in
Ring with truth.
They resonate with our first-hand experience.
They become part of our knowing.
Knowledge gained from others
Can be formulated into a question
And tested in the light of ensuing experience
To see if they ring true for ourselves.
But until then any "truths" adopted from others
Remain just "maybe's", opinions, ideas or beliefs --
False klnowledge --
Until they're tested in personal experience.
Then they have juice.
If you're reading thus far,
It's high time, if you haven't already done so,
For you to wean yourself off being force-fed;
Time to take responsibility for yourself,
Push the trainer wheels to one side,
Ask your own questions
And walk the path of your own truth unfolding.
To accomplish this,
You don't need to reject or isolate yourself from anyone or anything.
There's no need to make yourself "right" and another "wrong".
In fact, that might be detrimental.
On the contrary,
You could grow like a young sapling,
Separate
And under the shade and protection of older trees.
There are no free lunches on this journey,
No cheap, short-cut solutions,
No cheat-sheets at the back of someone else's textbook book to look up
For a quick answer.
By all means, listen to and read about the experiences of others --
You'll always get new ideas and possibilities
To try for yourself.
Life is a do-it-to-yourself game.
The only knowing for "me"
Is what I dis-cover within and through myself;
Anything else is rumour, hearsay and superstition.
That applies, by the way, to this and anything else I write.
This is my stuff, and I'm not even attached to it.
For you, it is nothing more than hearsay,
Until you test it in your own experience.
Neither you nor I can see with somebody else's eyes;
We cannot hear with somebody else's ears.
We cannot feel through another's heart;
I cannot think through your mind.
We're not supposed to!
We cannot know truth anywhere
Save in our own awareful experience.
In the past, I have allowed myself
And, in some instances, even begged to be conditioned by others who seem to have "The Answer".
I was so out of it then,
I didn't realise I was wanting, yet again,
For others to go responsible for me --
To tell me what to do.
The wise ones said "No. Here's a mud-map from when I did the trip. Find out for yourself. If you want to, let me know how you're going."
That was true empathy and support.
Similarly, I will not go responsible for you.
I give you a map and some notes,
But it's up to you to find your way.
If you really insist you cannot do it on your own,
That is your choice.
I know differently,
But it's not my job to disagree with you, prove you wrong and change your mind for you.
You'd never be able to thank me for it anyway
And you would be right to resent me for it.
Anything someone else gives you can be taken away from you.
Anything you give to your self, is yours,
And you will never need from another.
Other people's truths are like the Sower's Seed
That fell on stony ground.
It may take root and flourish for a while,
But eventually it will fall prey
To the heat of the summer sun
And the ravages of birds and insects.
Answers you get for yourself, from your experience
Are YOUR answers,
And no-one can take them away from you.
Stand in your own questions,
And be available for the answers that come in experience.
Here's a question for you to stand in -----
If "Me" is the Answer --
What might the Questions have been?
- What does it feel like to be writing, not knowing if anyone's going to read this stuff? [It feels like "me"]
- What does it feel like to be a father? Grandfather? Uncle? [It feels like "me"]
- What does it feel like to be the product of Bill and Eira Barkla? (Note: My brother and sister will have differing answers to that question)
- What does it feel like to be a responsible, allowing, caring, courageous, playful adventurer?
- What does it feel like to be an open, innocent, intelligent explorer?
- What does it feel like to be a phoney, deluded, head-fucking bore?
- What does it feel like to be an irresponsible danger?
- What does it feel like to have an Operating Principle that says I have to feel Grief and Hurt to gain Validation and Honour?
- What is honesty/dishonesty, and what does it feel like, from both sides?
- What is integrity/disintegrity?
- What is wisdom/stupidity?
What your life is about depends on the questions you ask of your self.
Experience is the universe's lesson.
The answers and the learning you get
Are up to you.
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