HERE GOES – ALL AND NOTHING

There are some fundamental keys to unlocking the door to happy success. They are so simple that most people never discover the secret. Why is that, do you think?

Probably because the keys are just too simple. Our complicated minds go looking for complexity.

[Remind the Blinded – KryptamistiK]

We look for Complication we always find what they're looking for. As we grow – in years, as distinct from growing in wisdom – we leave creativity and simplicity behind and start to look for answers in complexity. We don't mean to, but as one day follows another, we find holes and exceptions eating into yesterday's theories and conclusions, and we keep adding riders and codicils, sub-clauses and modifications to cover our arses, until the grand spirit, content and intent of the original is buried in piddling detail. Vision gets lost within a web of petty bureaucracy. The inertia of mediocrity prevails.

During my years as an articled law clerk I learned a foundational principle of life: there is no genius in complexity. Any idiot can make things difficult. Complexity favours pettiness, cancerous confusion, listless tedium, a potential goldmine for legislators and lawyers, and a living of sorts for their lackeys. Like graffiti and vandalism, Complexity gives talentless nobodies a chance to make their mark.

Abe Lincoln (a reformed lawyer, by the way) saw the trap of complexity and said this, "I'm sorry I wrote such a long letter. I did not have the time to write a short one."

Don't get me wrong – planning, strategy and clarification are essential to achieve success in any endeavour, but not for their own sake and at the expense of getting results. If the details don't serve a see-able, constant vision, and instead become an end unto themselves, you then fall prey to your own complicacy and to those who have no vision and use trifling finickiness to assert Control in the absence of any leadership skills. Beware such people; they contaminate and deplete everything they touch. 

 

[You Go To My Head – Billy May]

Lack of spirit – Apathy – and Ignorance of its dire consequences are why most people find it easier to just go-along-to-get- along, stay put, or simply change or add on to what exists. Creating what could be is a choice not considered. Institutionalised lethargy leaves people, politicians, organisations, clubs, religions, businesses, and even voluntary or amateur groups stuck, simply stumbling along on incremental improvements, rather than creating breakthroughs.

Self-serving systems keep people from discovering their unique purpose, from seeing a vision of the future and creating a life they were truly meant and desire to live. The dead past is given the status of a powerful force, filled as it always is with stale stories of justification, working together to draw us back into someone’s comfort zone.

I think it's axiomatic that there's no breakthrough without breakdown. But we've been conditioned to dread breakdown. The very word comes with cultural and medical connotations of “Wrongness”.What a pity; breakdown is an essential part of the Transformative process. Breakdown distinguishes Transformation from mere change.

It's true, new experiences or going out on a limb can make us feel uneasy, dis-eased, and uncertain, and a fear of those feelings can cause a type of paralysis within us. 

 

[Keep It Simple – Tommy Emmanuel]

But what if --- what if we can form a new attitude towards our fear of dis-ease? What if we can establish a new relationship with uncertainty and "nothing”? What if, as we experience breakdown, we welcome it? 

If we embrace, and we can – if we're willing – embrace a blank page as a wonderful opportunity to design what we want our next moment to be—we can escape the treadmill of revisiting the past, and have immediate access to unlimited potential.

But do you want that? Really? If you suddenly have the opportunity to access unlimited potential, what would you have to give up to make make room for that? What would you have to let go of? I'll tell you what: start with that thought, and that feeling that came up just now. Yes, that one. That's what's stopping you.

How do you have it all?

Simple. No wonder you never thought of it. Let go your fear of “nothing” and go for Simple. Try that for starters. That should keep you creatively occupied for a while.

[Give Me the Simple Life – The Idea of North (A) –2:54]