I’m sharing another morsel from my upcoming book, Whose Reality Is It, Anyway? This is an excerpt from Reality Root Three: I Want To Rule the Rules and I hope it challenges the Critical Thinker within you.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and reactions to this, and all our blog sharings.
Mark C.
Oh dear, What If…
―the error of all our ways has been founded on one terrible false reality:
That we are in control?
A friendly game of putt-putt golf with my son and grandson. We were on vacation together and I was affected by the excitement of the 6-year-old who led our campaign. He had never before experienced the joy of the tin cup chase. His dad, nor grandad had ever taken the time to explain to him, the intricate rules of match play: especially the nuances of bouncing a ball off a brick border, angling the shot just right as to maneuvering the ball along the green and as close to, or into each hole on the course. And more specifically, he had never been given free rein to do as he wished with a club and ball.
We soon discovered all of this wise counsel unnecessary: In Tobin’s mind, there were other things to be considered; the most apparent (by my observation) was speed. As Grandpa and Dad calculated and adjusted and plodded through the course, our young charge…chose an alternate approach. Each carpeted lane was a race to be won. If he was impeded by others ahead of him who were not of like-mind, he would fidget and bounce (politely NOT interfering with their methods, I might add) and once the hole was available for play, pushing as much as stroking the ball to its ultimate destination.
Other families on the course also detected his excitement and strategy, and some would step aside to allow him to play through. My son and I were half-way through our 18 when we heard the victory shout, “I win!” Tobin was ecstatic as he plucked his ball from the last hole. He danced and ran back to us, eager to share the wisdom of his victory and instruct us in how to maneuver more quickly to improve our game.
In the end, the rules were unimportant. It was the method that prevailed and who would dare argue? Has any one of us not experienced the proclamation of our victories only to find that there were a different set of regulations that determined the outcome of our quest? What was the famous adage of Grantland Rice?
“―not that you won or lost—but how you played the Game..”
Yet even that bit of competitive wisdom might be in question. What if…it’s not a game? What if the rules don’t count because none of our rules are relevant? Is there some other set of conditions we have neglected, possibly avoided, because we want our way to be the only way? Might there have been some original statutes for a higher cause, a better outcome that all of our gaming interferes with, complicates; ends our desired outcome…poorly?
Who knows? Who decides? Is the measurement of our pursuits conductively important at all? Tobin demonstrated for me that each of us is shaped and reshaped in creative and unimaginable ways by our second-to-second encounters with life. Each of us is changed and become more individualistic…more unreal to one another…as we discover our discriminate ways of coping with everyone else who is coping differently.
What if…
―all of what we strive for, even Tobin’s passionate pursuit, no matter
how well intended, leads to an inferior or totally wrong achievement?
If the question is valid, do we dare seek the answer?
Reality Re-Rooting Three: As our realities intersect, all the rules change.
Mark C.