Utilization

Now that we've got a little bit of a tool box to call on, I want to perhaps suggest a little thought experiment. First something to get us started. I'd like us to think of how we might apply the categories of both Mr. Dilts and Mr. Burke to things we've talked about before. On the Belief/Value or Purpose level, I'd like to propose that we think back to Jean Genet, and the way he transformed every event of his prison life into something sacred and beautiful. The fact that his environment, and his actions as well, were in utter contradiction to the way we generally think of Christian paradise and saintliness, only makes his story more poignant, meaningful and real for us. He had such a need to live in a world permeating with love and the miraculous that he in essence made it happen.

On the level of Capabilities or Agency, we have the Curves or Strategies one uses to negotiate one's environment and to initiate behaviors. There are innumberable varieties of these, everything from tracking the spoon coming to your lips with your eyes, to making necessary adjustments with your hand, arm and neck to get it into your mouth, one for deciding how to judge whether the food you are eating is worth the effort, several for deciding whether this post is worth your time to read, a bunch that you use just to read it, which overlap with other curves that you use to make judgments about what is plausible or entertaining... I can go on forever.

What is significant here is to attempt to find some alignment between the Agency part and the Purpose part. Since there are a lot of things that you do with your mind, with your entire nervous system, in order to get through your day, there must be a few things that somehow correspond with what, in your heart of hearts, you'd like to believe is true about yourself and the world, as well as what you value.

Chances are, there is no task in particular, in your day-to-day work life, that serves your deepest core desires. You answer a phone, make copies on the copier, keep notes at a meeting, clean up after people, drive nails through wood, but none of this really has anything to do with that stuff that hits you now and then, when you hear a story from a friend, or even through the media, and it chokes you up, either makes you sad or suddenly misty, as if you were reminded of something you had meant to do in your life but had forgotten.

But there might be something in the WAY you answer the phone, or drive nails, or yell at the copier, or treat someone in need with tenderness, make an off-color joke, or snap the last stroke of a spitshine, that conveys something of that impulse.

Here is your assignment. All I ask is that you try for no more than an hour, no less than ten minutes, at some convenient time, if a convenient time happens to arise, to imagine what kind of world you would like to live in, not so much on the global scale (just yet) but within an environment you are familiar with, say your job for instance, and how you might paint that space with significance, as Genet would, in order for you to feel as though you were living in that world. And then imagine what things that you do, on a routine basis, and how, that might communicate to someone that you were part of that world, or that you were creating that world, just by living that way. And which things don't you do, that you could do, and how you would do them, knowing what you know about the world you are living in and want to live in, and what things, if there are any, might you even perhaps, if necessary, be willing to make tremendous sacrifices for, and not only for yourself, but out of a belief that it would bring something of great value (if that is possible) to those in your community, who you are a part of, and to those even beyond that.

Remember, there is no commitment involved in this. It is purely for entertainment. But what you entertain in the process may have a lot to say about the difference between where you are at the present, and who you could be at any moment.