Clearing the Path

"Natural inclinations are assisted and reinforced by education, but they are hardly ever altered or overcome.” - Montaigne

I'm uncertain how true this observation is, but part of me hopes the natural impulses' resistance to change means that a return to my true self, and path toward what I should be, is more a removal of obstacles than an arduous reconstruction.

Lyrics of Possibility, pt.3b

Dream On (Aerosmith)
Every time that I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face gettin' clearer
The past is gone
It went by like dust to dawn
Isn't that the way
Everybody's got their dues in life to pay

I know what nobody knows
Where it comes and where it goes
I know it's everybody's sin
You got to lose to know how to win

Half my life's in book's written pages
Live and learn from fools and from sages
You know its true
All these things come back to you

Sing with me, sing for the years
Sing for the laughter, sing for the tears
Sing with me, if its just for today
Maybe tomorrow the good lord will take you away
(x2)

Dream on, dream on
Dream yourself a dream come true
Dream on, dream on
Dream until your dream come true
Dream on, dream on, dream on...

Sing with me, sing for the years
Sing for the laughter, sing for the tears
Sing with me, if its just for today
Maybe tomorrow the good lord will take you away

Lyrics of Possibility, pt.3a

Unwritten (Natasha Bedingfield)

I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm undefined
I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Oh, oh, oh

I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines
We've been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can't live that way

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
The rest is still unwritten
The rest is still unwritten

Lyrics of Possibility, pt.2

Higher Power (Boston)

Let me love you
Take me home to your religion for the night
Let me touch you
Teach me how to see your vision through my eyes
Turn the pages
Tell my story, let me face another day
Safe embraces, I feel it comin' now
My captain's on his way.

Hey, my high power
The world is spinnin', but I'm not afraid
Yeah, give me the power It's the beginnin', the beginnin' of another day.

Yeah

Let me hold you
Take me back into the secrets of my mind
Let me know you
Come and save me Lord
Don't let me cross the line

Hey, my high power
The world is spinnin', but I'm not afraid
Yeah, give me the power It's the beginnin', the beginnin' of another day.

"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Thy will,not mine,shall be done.
Amen."

Oo, let me love you
Oo, let me love you

Hey, my Higher Power
The world is spinnin', but I'm not afraid

Yea, my Higher Power
It's the beginning of another day.

Hey, my Higher Power
The world is spinnin', but I'm not afraid

Yeah, my Higher Power
It's the beginnin' of another day.

Hey, my high power...

Lyrics of Possibility, pt.1

“Something's Coming” (West Side Story, by Stephen Sondheim)

Could be!
Who knows?
There's something due any day;
I will know right away,
Soon as it shows.
It may come cannonballing down through the sky,
Gleam in its eye,
Bright as a rose!

Who knows?
It's only just out of reach,
Down the block, on a beach,
Under a tree.
I got a feeling there's a miracle due,
Gonna come true,
Coming to me!

Could it be? Yes, it could.
Something's coming, something good,
If I can wait!
Something's coming, I don't know what it is,
But it is
Gonna be great!

With a click, with a shock,
Phone'll jingle, door'll knock,
Open the latch!
Something's coming, don't know when, but it's soon;
Catch the moon,
One-handed catch!

Around the corner,
Or whistling down the river,
Come on, deliver
To me!
Will it be? Yes, it will.
Maybe just by holding still,
It'll be there!

Come on, something, come on in, don't be shy,
Meet a guy,
Pull up a chair!
The air is humming,
And something great is coming!
Who knows?
It's only just out of reach,
Down the block, on a beach,
Maybe tonight . . .

Basic Methods: Prayer

The first two basic methods, or paths, discussed were positive thinking, in which one drives oneself toward the goals, and the law of attraction (LOA, a.k.a. intention), in which the universe itself is incited to bring good things to you. The third method, prayer, is very much like the second, but is instead a request of a higher power.

The threshold for believing in the power of prayer is higher than it is for self-motivation (which is pretty much self-evident), yet lower than the level of reason required to buy into LOA (which can seem rather silly at first blush). The list looks something like this:

You need a deity (omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent) who gives a rip about how things are going on Earth, cares enough about you to listen, and has the wherewithal and willingness to adjust things once convinced. We'll call this being God. (That's actually a title, not a name, but that's for a different article.) You also need a willingness to ask for what you want and to do it in a way that doesn't irritate the almighty. That asking is prayer.

Now, the difference between LOA and prayer is more than just where it's being directed and how you think about it. People uncomfortable with one or the other are very likely to pretend they are the same just to keep the peace or appease others' vanity. They are not the same outside of a very few issues. Most obviously, they are both appeals to something admittedly vastly more powerful than ourselves. In neither case should we assume or act like we are ordering this Power around. Gratitude, however, should absolutely be expressed and felt in both cases and for similar reasons.

The differences begin right at the root of the matter. LOA is a force of nature, like electromagnetism or gravity. It works as it does because of what it is, and it is no more animate than a candle flame: it may seem to be, but it has no actual opinion or desire (in the sense that living creatures have) and simply does what it does. God, on the other hand, is the very definition of awareness and consciousness, and gave all the natural forces - including LOA - their methods and abilities. You can appeal to God, argue with Him, even negotiate. You can no more argue with LOA than a mechanic argues with an engine. He may seem to, but it's an illusion.

The practical upshot of this appears when making one's appeal. To invoke LOA one must apply positive emotion, ideally joy, to a visualization of the desired outcome, and, if possible, experience beforehand the emotion one feels when the desire is manifested. You don't have to believe in it: it's a force of nature and will happen with or without you. You do have to feel it: that's how it works. Regret, fear, and similar feelings get in the way of it.

With prayer, on the other hand, belief is absolutely required but feeling that the prayer will be answered positively (it is arguably always answered; sometimes the answer is “no”) is not strictly necessary. This can cause a certain amount of confusion in the petitioner, since we intuitively understand that feeling something and believing it are strongly related. (This, by the way, further suggests that LOA is built into us as a basic understanding.) In the Gospel of Mark's 9th chapter, Jesus said to a man whose son was in dire straits, “Everything is possible for him who believes.” Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” He didn't feel it and didn't naturally act as though the healing were possible; but he wanted to believe. His son was healed.

Prayer allows for an expression of the negative emotions and forgives the human weaknesses that the forces of nature are rather more harsh about. This is because that almighty, omnipotent deity cares for you. Tiny, foolish, totally insignificant you. Yeah, omniscience means there is nothing new in your pouring out of sorrows, but every good father knows what's troubling his child before she curls up on his lap and sobs out the story of her day. It's the telling that is the important part, and the asking. Even if the answer turns out to be, “No, there is a better way,” it builds the relationship. Which is what prayer is all about.

Basic Methods: The Law of Attraction

Chances are you're either a believer in this idea or not, and won't be swayed either way by anything I say. That's fine with me! Don't forget, I'm here to figure it out, myself. You have to admit, though, that if true, this could be the biggest change of all from the ordinary.

The Law of Attraction (LOA for short), at its simplest, is the ancient idea that like attracts like. It combines with, or is partly interchangeable with, the concept of “intent,” which suggests that what you mean to do or what you want to happen, is urged toward existence thereby. Whereas Positive Thinking (PT) is a way to alert oneself to good things and align one's perceptions and actions toward receiving and encouraging them, LOA and its related concepts state that the same can be affected outside of one's physical influence.

Think of it: utilizing this sort of thing, one could remotely prompt an old friend to finally call; not just see a parking space but reliably cause one to open up on your path; increase walk-in business. Though these examples don't really show it, there are ways to empirically define whether or not one's intentions are making an actual difference. What makes this part of the experiment interesting is that it can be tested and exists outside of one's control.

Like PT, LOA is not the same as Wishful Thinking. If anything, it's even farther from it than PT. It's a law of nature, and you can no more “break” it than you can break the law of gravity. That is, you can fight against it, but it's still there, fully in effect. We all interact with gravity every hour of every day, and people have since long before Newton had that incident with the apple. You don't have to understand Bernoulli's Principle to see that airplanes somehow leave the ground and know that it has something to do with their wings. LOA is with us whether we know it, want it, believe in it - or not! It simply is.

So… what the heck is it? What possible effect could my mere thoughts have on the physical world around me? It's a complicated answer (much more so than explaining Bernoulli's Principle), but the essential idea, as my imperfect understanding has it, is this:

When we experience an emotion about something, it has an effect on that something. Whether the emotion is positive or negative, the object of the feeling is drawn to the emotion. It seems, according to my reading thus far, to have a stronger effect on the web of patterns and effects in the world rather than the specific objects in those patterns. It's not a matter of wishing or hoping for something, but rather of recognizing that it is real or true (even if it isn't yet). Wishing, as I've said before, is very nearly a focus on something not being so, which may well have the opposite effect that one desires. Instead, build strong feeling in yourself, joyous positive feeling, that something is already true, already coming to pass, already real (whatever is appropriate), and connect it to a gratefulness regarding this good thing.

I sound very much like I already believe in LOA, don't I? Well, until pretty recently I didn't. Some things have happened lately that shoved me rather forcefully toward thinking that it just may be so. More on that another time.