A.T. Lynne

Herefollows a story intended to demonstrate how asking for what you don’t want can bring you exactly that.

My mother, Katherine Faulconer (1916-2000) was an actress in Southern California, performing in local live theater well into her eighties.  She was gracious, talented and absolutely indefatigable.  The directors, casts and crews with whom she performed adored her.  When she departed this plane, thousands mourned her passing.

One of the challenges in Katherine’s career on stage was that she wore dentures.  She did all she could to ensure that this situation never interferred with the clarity of her lines nor with her ability to project her voice to the back of the theatre.  It was very important, therefore, that her teeth stay tightly in place.

In 1980, I had the good fortune to work as Assistant Stage Manager for San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre during a production in which Katherine played a significant role.  The play was Night Must Fall, a 1930′s melodrama by the British playwright Emlyn Williams.  In the play, Katherine played Mrs Bramson, a bitter, self-pitying elderly woman who is murdered by a psychotic schemer.  Mrs. Bramson has a penchant for chocolates, and the role required Katherine to nibble from a box of chocolates throughout her scenes.

And that meant, before and after those scenes, the backstage crew was forever also nibbling from the box of chocolates.  Sometimes the crew’s greediness left the box in definite need of replenishment by the next night’s performance.

One evening during the run, as we were preparing for the show, the prop girl noticed that the box was nearly empty.  She told one of the stagehands to find out what kind of chocolates Katherine preferred, then go to the nearby Long’s Drug Store and buy the cheapest Whitman’s Sampler box of that sort.

The stagehand dashed into the darkened theater and called toward the stage where the cast was doing a run-through.  “What kind of chocolates would you like, Katherine?”

The rehearsal stopped as Katherine called back, “Anything but chews.”

In the echoey empty hall, the stagehand only heard the last word as he hurried out the door. He got back from Long’s just in time to dump the new candies into the prop chocolate box before Katherine went on stage and the curtain rose.

Through the next two hours’ performance that night, Katherine’s words were spoken with a distinctly careful delivery, as she did all she could to keep the tenaciously chewy chocolate-covered caramels and toffee candies from dislodging her teeth.

When you tell others what you envision for yourself and your future, use words and images that speak only to what you desire to see and experience.  Whatever words you use paint pictures into the minds of your listeners.  And, as with the stagehand, when your words include images of what you don’t want, those may well be the images on which these listeners act.

Even when we aren’t aware that others are “helping” us, what we tell them, at the very least, becomes a story about us that they pass along to others.  When we speak, therefore, of the goodness we desire, of the achievements we are working toward, of the outcomes we expect to enjoy, these are seeds that will grow in the other person’s fertile imagination.  And, it is often from this garden within others that we harvest the results of our words.

Despite the prevalence of stories to the contrary, it is my contention that we are not predominantly motivated by the desire to get.  I believe that we are primarily and deeply inspired to give, to contribute something uniquely from us and something that is seen and accepted as precious and worthwhile.

However, for many of us, from our earliest years, the adults in our lives interpreted our petition for attention as a request that they give us something.  And so, they gave us stuff, usually toys and excess food.  And now, attention-seeking children are also placated with excess exposure to the sorts of “interactive” entertainments that engage them, not with other people in real time, but with machines in virtual time.

Perhaps some parents or teachers actually knew, or, at least, had the suspicion that what we really wanted was the opportunity to share our first discoveries, celebrate our developing skills, display the artwork of our awakening imaginations.  However, they, too, were most probably subjected to this idea that children were incessantly wanting to get, which incited them to see us as insatiable takers.  And with this view, they very possible felt we were attempting to take too much of what they’d come to covet for themselves — their own desperately finite time and attention.  It was easier to shut us up with things, rather than give us twenty minutes to demonstrate how we could tie our shoes.

Now, as adults, many of us continue the pattern of adding ever more things, activities, and even people to our lives in the hopes that the yearning we feel will be satisfied.  However, when the yearning is to give more of ourselves, rather than get more stuff, no shopping spree, no accumulation of more things, not even titles and corner offices, can satisfy us, unless these acquisitions are clearly seen in our own minds as evidence of what we have first given to others.

For your own deep peace and sense of purposefulness, whenever you have the opportunity, give.  Give a few minutes of your attention; give a kind word; give a creative idea; and give yourself more accolades for the constructive and useful things you do every day.  Give to yourself the acknowledgement you would like from others for the actions and deeds you do, and you will be satisfied, having given to the world and having given to yourself.

And, when you witness someone else’s contribution, let them know their gift has been noticed.  Tell others how you see their unique ways of doing or being or living as blessings to the world.

Last week, my friend C. asked me for some new ideas for gift-giving at her annual holiday party.  Her guests, all well-heeled and comfortably ensconced in houses filled with things, neither needed nor wanted any more stuff.  And yet, up until now, feeling that a holiday party was not complete without the gift-giving event, they still continue the gift exchange games.

However, the group had also gotten so pragmatic about the uselessness of the tradition and the exchanged items, that C. had actually put a Goodwill donation bag beside the front door into which unwanted gifts could be discarded when departing the party.  Forget even getting it home to put on the “re-gifting” shelf.

The problem with this is that, however little one invests in the requisite gift, and, however fast one wraps it up, there is something deeply disconnecting about seeing a gift you have just presented to someone being discarded so casually.  Despite the maturity and social conditioning that would probably override any overtly expressed disappointment, to see even this merest essence of our efforts cast off so insouciantly registers within us.  And, even worse, the giver, seeing their gift cast away, might make some self-deprecating remark about their own poor taste.  And, therein, the gift and the giver are minimized.  No, this is not the best solution for a holiday ostensibly devoted to celebrating the symbolic birth of love and goodwill.

The first idea that I offered C. was to invite each guest to bring a talent to share.  Each one could recite a favorite poem, bring an instrument and perform a favorite piece, or even bring a CD of someone else’s performance of their favorite music or recitation.

C. quickly dismissed this as unacceptable for her group.  She said the location, in the back room of a popular restaurant, was not conducive to this sort of solo performance.  She also felt certain that her friends would be embarassed, not inspired, by the invitation to share in this way.

I agree that there are many – too many – people who, for years and years, have denied themselves this sort of bold and playful self-expression.  People with fine minds, and perhaps even great innate talent, who have hidden away their light and who, as Thoreau warned, may die with their music still in them.  These are the ones who have not yet risen to embrace themselves nor come to understand what Marianne Williamson put so beautifully:

“You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

And, so, I left C.’s house with her resigned to the same old game of name-drawing, cheap gift buying and wrapping for an exchange that will end in the give-away bag.

Today, however, another sort of gift exchange occured to me when I looked up a friend’s business online.  When I found her small company listed on Yelp, I saw that there are currently only three testimonials.  Each one raves about her service and her knowledge of the products her business supplies.  And, I know for certain that she and her business are highly valued by the small community she serves.

I, also, know she may soon be in the market for a buyer.  How influenced would a prospective buyer be, I wondered, if there were fifty, or a hundred, postings about the value of her business to her town?  Seeing the paucity of endorsements, coupled with this question gave birth to the following new idea.

The Priceless Gift is a written testimonial to the wonderful qualities of the gift recipient.  Begin with a few quiet moments to call the person vividly to mind.  Scan your memory for those qualities you truly admire in this person.  Jot these ideas as quickly as they come, just a word or two. Then, return to your mental picture of the person, allowing every good thought you have to come to the surface.  All you really need for this part is just five or ten minutes.  You are collecting snapshot impressions and noting them with just a word or two.

Now, give yourself another five to ten minutes to frame the best four or five of those images into the following sentence structures:

I am so thankful that I know ________ because….

______’s understanding of/skill with/talents in [area of expertise] have inspired me to learn more about [______'s or your own interests].

Many people benefit from ________’s [quality you genuinely perceive in the person].

I admire ______’s way with [people, animals, auto repair, etc]

______’s [wisdom, kindness, tenacity, courage, etc.] has made a difference in my life and in the lives of others.

Four or five sentences are all you need.  Now, here are some of the ways you can deliver this gift.  The most intimate way is to hand-write this celebration of the person on specially selected stationary (not a pre-printed greeting card) and send it through the Post Office.  You could take it along to a gathering where you both will be and hand deliver it.  Or, you could call the gathering to attention, and, when everyone is quiet, you could read your appreciative statements out loud.

If the person is a co-worker, you could address the letter to his supervisor.  If the person is your instructor, you could send it to the school’s administration.  If the person is a service worker, the bus driver, a barrista or sales clerk, you could send the letter to her employer.  And, if the person is your friend, you could send it to their spouse, their children or their parents.

You can think of this as the eulogy you get to write while the person is still here to receive the blessing of your appreciative words.

And, back to my friend’s company on Yelp, you could do what I intend to do as soon as I complete this essay.  You could go to a service like Yelp, to your favorite social networking site, or directly to the individual’s website and post your letter there.

With or without a holiday to prompt your giving, consider giving The Priceless Gift often, and let your own loving light shine, Now.

Nothing we tell another person is ever a brand new thought.  It has already cycled, at least once, through our own minds; welled up in response to sensations to formulate first in our imaginations.

And as we prepare to let these thoughts escape our lips, we choose the genre of story we will make them.  Choose then, mindfully, before you speak.  For you shall reap the harvest of your words through the response of your listeners.

Are you telling anecdotes of an action-adventure, fables of a morality play, cautionary tales of a tragedy, lessons of a historical drama or  confessions of a femme fatale in a romantic comedy?

Notice that with every genre you choose, you automatically cast yourself into a role by which your audience may hence forward be tranced into believing is really you.

Last weekend, a dear friend’s daughter, K., took her own life.  She was a lovely human being who blessed many lives, including those of her partner and her partner’s three children.

K. was also someone who idly toyed with the idea of suicide since her middle teens.  I know.  She and I had talked in this idle, hypothetical manner about this “option” from time to time for decades.  And, sometimes, when times were weighing heavily on us, the talk we confided to one another was less idle, less hypothetical.  We spoke of “taking ourselves out” when it got too bad, as though it were the right of any sane person.  With life-wearied cynicism, we used our creativity to discuss the various ways we might exit this world, should things get just too bad to bear.

K. and I aren’t the only ones I’ve known who have talked idly, and not so idly, this way.  “Exit strategy,” “Final plan,” “Getting out with dignity” are some of the terms I’ve heard other people use.  Rising from bitterness or ennui or self-loathing, these plans were embellished, finely detailed, envisioned in technicolor.  All the while, the authors of them would, at the end of the exercise, insist it was only a way to reduce the stress of the moment, to relieve the pressure or despair of a passing challenge.

And yet, as the Biblical prophet Isaiah is quoted as saying, “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper [in the thing] whereto I sent it.” As alternate to that archaic King James language, here the statement also is from the New Living Translation (2007) “It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.”

Yes, our words, idle or not, do not fall away behind us with the dregs of yesterday’s coffee.  No, they are the very seeds we plant that grow into our tomorrows.  And, the life we are living now is the harvest of what we, ourselves, have planted in the distant or recent past.  We are both sowing and reaping every day of our lives.  And, everytime the mind, idly or intentionally, dwells on an idea, we act upon it in some small way.

In order for K. to meet the end she did, she had to build up her tolerance and consumption of alcohol.  She had to convince herself of a terrible outcome to what was, generally, a fine domestic union.  She had to shop for, buy and rehearse using a hand gun.  And, she had to put those three ingredients together over and over in her mind, in order to override her own well-practiced problem-solving capacities and overcome the fantastically powerful human will to live.

K.’s brutal and, to some, seemingly unpremeditated departure, is to me a wake-up call of the highest authority.  As I said, I was one of the people with whom K. had had this conversation, this sowing of a future harvest.  And K. wasn’t the only one who was embellishing the vision with details.  Yes, even through my recent successes, even while involved in the most companionable and mature relationship of my life, I had also unwittingly and recklessly toyed with suicide as a door I had the legitimate right to consider walking through, should life turn sour and things get “unmanageable.”  Even more, I believed, up until last weekend, that sustaining this idea in my imagination was actually an act of loving self-care.

Yet, within a heartbeat of hearing this news about my friend’s daughter, my mind was changed – irrevocably, I hope.  To entertain thoughts of suicide is neither an expression of loving self-regard nor is it an option truly sane people allow to linger in their minds.  I have been long and deeply mistaken in this.  Although I have known and put great faith in that promise from Isaiah 55:11, I simply was blind to what dangerous work I was doing with my own idle thinking.

Perhaps there is another way, or many other ways, to neutralize the effects of that work.  However, the best and most grace-filled one I know at this moment is forgiveness.  Forgiveness is a sword that truly and permanently severs our attachments to ideas, attitudes and visions we have unwisely nurtured about ourselves or someone else.  For me, this fabulous gift does indeed uproot even the most tenacious and viral seeds.  Forgiveness saves us from having to suffer the full consequences of both our idle and dreadful imaginings.

Yet, is this sowing and reaping of suicide stories the only mythology that leads to dangerous contemplations of death?  Are there different seeds that people unwittingly plant which lead to the same premature and painful harvest?  Yes, I believe there are.  These are the seeds sown by news headlines, which fill a mind with terror about an incessant barrage of unavoidable dooms coming over the earth. These are the seeds in unfounded gossip, which passes along partial truths and amplified lies about the misfortunes of others, embedded always with the suggestion that those misfortunes are contagious.  These are the seeds of marketing, which first convinces you of imagined or unnecessarily-amplified frailties, then addicts you to their products’ antidote.

If you recognize in yourself, patterns of thinking, imagining and visualizing an unpleasant, early or desperate end to your own magnificent life, I encourage you to practice forgiveness.  Forgive yourself for being caught by the words and pictures the media flashes before you from every quarter, day after day, with the devoted intention to frighten you.  That is simply their job.  Forgive yourself for being ensnared by juicy gossip.  This is one of the most seductive and prevalent persuasion tactics, and we all have used it.  Forgive yourself for being entranced by commercials.  Those who want to sell you things invest billions every year to pull your attention toward their products.

Forgiveness of others will free you to go about your own business.  With neither condemnation nor judgment about what you see and hear, you will consider these diversions with complete indifference.  Yet, forgiving yourself, completely and often, is the act that can truly release you from that bitter harvest.

We do not move; we rematerialize.

At the moment of outward physical expression, that expression in form which we think ourselves to “be” is actually the remnant and static manifestation of imagination in form as are the elements of paint on canvas or words on a page.  Life exists in the blink of imagination before manifestation, and from that blink, from the brushstroke or keystroke, the next instant’s materialization of physical self emanates.

According to Bob Toben and Fred Alan Wolf in their seminal work on theoretical physics, Space-Time and Beyond, “every action in ‘real time’ is an indefinite sequence of materializations and dematerializations on the microscopic quantum level. They occur faster than the speed of light and in such great numbers that perception of this action is continual.”

Through the ubiquitous use of video and film,  this perception of stop-action-as-continual-movement is an incessant experience of our 21st century lives.  These familiar “materializations” pass in front of our eyes at much slower rates.  Film runs at 24 frames per second and video, at 30 frames per second. Yet, even at those slower rates, they are fast enough to fool us into believing we are watching movement.

Each instant of life is a static composition of atomic matter that in the next moment has dematerialized and rematerialized or  reconfigured itself into something entirely new.  Regardless of how similar that moment may seem to the one that preceded it, it is brand new.

So, what determines this reconfiguration?  It is not as you may think, some ebb and flow of chemistry.  The impetus for all reconfigurations of things which can be perceived is the ebb and flow of the electrical impulses of your brain.  In other words, it is thought itself, imagination, from which your corporeal existence and your perceived world arise.

Before you devote your allegiance to a thought, any thought, consider that the thought holds no allegiance to you.  As with the sponteneous birth of other virus, thoughts are simply spontaneous constructs born at the confluence of streams of mental activity.  And thoughts, like viruses, have life only as long as they have a host.

That host can be conscious and welcoming, happy to live by the thought’s intent and eager to offer the thought to others.  Or, the host can be an unconscious repository for an idea which is decidedly antithetical to the host’s own desires and well-being.  In these instances, the host may only be aware of the thought’s occupation in the wake of arguments and alienation resulting from wars with friends and foes alike, wars fought in unwitting service to spreading a viral invasive thought from one vulnerable mind to the next.

Just as one-night lovers aren’t aware of the transmission of deadly viruses between them, so the person occupied by crankiness may never know that she is infecting others with her disheartening attitude.  However, by this human vulnerability to viral thoughts, the person who gives a smile to a passing stranger may well implant a virus of uplift, though he may never witness its long-term affects.

You cannot be aware and think at the same time.  Scientific research has proven that stimulus precedes thought.  Or it could be said that thought lags behind sensation or stimulus.  What is wondrous to the researchers is that thought lags behind by a full half second.  This means that your life is happening half a second before you know that it has happened!

On the other hand awareness of sensation is instantaneous.

Therefore, you either assign your attention to what is actually happening in the moment through awareness of immediate sensation, or you assign your attention to assessing and evaluating, or in some other way thinking about the sensation.

A test of this is to lift your head and look about you right now.  Say the word “red” over and over as you glance about.  Now count on your fingers up to 10, each time you see the color red, as you continue saying “red.”

Now, do the same thing while saying the word “blue.”  This time however, keep your attention on each blue object until you also say what the object is that is blue.  For example, in addition to “blue” you will say “blue sky,” “blue scissors handles,” “blue pen.”

Did you notice how much longer it took you to count the 10 blue objects you identified by name versus how much faster it was to get to 10 when you simply acknowledged the experience of the perception of the color red?

In awareness is actually where deep rest and relaxation happen.  It is also where creativity blossoms and hypnotic suggestion tranforms.

One of the precepts of Alanon is, ”Don’t precipitate a crisis nor interfere with a crisis.”  I had, heretofore, understood this admonition to mean, ”bite your tongue and let someone reap the consequences of his bad decisions.”  This is also referred to in 12-step programs as allowing another person “to reach his bottom.”

Today, an even more significant reason for keeping such crisis thoughts to yourself occurred to me.  The “crisis” that you are admonished to not perpetuate nor interfere with is, really, merely an imagined outcome your own creative mind has conjured.  Unless you are a prognosticator with proven powers of knowing the future, in other words, if you are astoundingly wealthy due to your knowing in advance which horses, teams or candidates will win and you’ve successfully put your money where you mouth is, then, just maybe, your imagined outcome is not such a sure thing.  If, in truth, you are as incapable of divining the future as the rest of us, wisdom will guide you to keep your mouth shut.

Your antsyness to warn someone of his impending misfortune proves only that you have tranced yourself into believing in this imminent and certain outcome.  Nevertheless, the “crisis” still resides only in your own mind.  And, in those moments when you are so eager to divert another’s attention with your story is the time when you are more deeply in love with your mind’s fabrication than you are with the victim of your imagined bad outcome.

Simpy because you have become enchanted with the “crisis” you envision, in no way means it is any more true a future outcome than someone else’s mental picture.  However, when you become unquestioningly invested in the “truth” of your imaginings, the temptation to trance others into believing along with you can seem irresistible.  

Yet, questioning the thoughts which barrel out of your ever active mind is really not such a hard thing to do.  Playing the “Says Who?” Game from 21 Games for The Mind that Won’t Shut the @#&* Up! makes questioning thoughts easy, illuminating and worthwhile.  As you question the value of predicting unpleasantness for others, and as you reawaken to your heart’s desire to be respectful, you will much more easily refrain from polluting others’ intentions with toxic imaginings.  Questioning your thoughts also brings the added benefit that such unpleasant predictions will be less and less inclined to take up residence in your mind, leaving space for creative imaginings which glorify, dignify and bring joy.  This is the way of genuine and mature love.

Currently, I am preparing the lessons for my October-November class, HOW TO WRITE AWARD-WINNING SHORT STORIES THAT PEOPLE LOVE AND REMEMBER.  Since I expect the class to fill up and since some people who would like to take the course live too far away, I have decided to post the lessons here, and in advance of the class.

My topics and my teaching methodologies differ distinctly from those of other instructors.  And, as valuable as these lessons will be to everyone who chooses to download the information from this website, they are much richer when experienced in a classroom setting.  So, I invite every interested writer, new or experienced, to take a look at these concepts as I present them.

Most of all, I wish for each of you the stimulus to write.  Write for fame and fortune and write for yourself — and always understand, these two, when unadulterated, are one and the same.

Look for these lesson posts beginning next week, Monday, August 24.

Also, prepare to enjoy more of my own award-winning short stories when Prime Number Press publishes my newest collection of fiction, Under a Gibbous Moon, in early 2011.  If you’ve not yet read the most recent of these, I invite you to click here or on the link at the top of this page: “Edward’s Heart” Award-Winning Short Story.