The Moment of Truth (Right Now)

When you’re being at the moment of truth, really just being the moment of truth, the experience of time’s passing slows dramatically.  The wisdom aspect of it is a knowing everything and a knowing nothing all at the same time.  Present.  To everything.  And Nothing.

It was a grey 1978 Ford Fairmont.  It had the sweet, dashed, between-the-windows stripe but that had been painted over by an Earl Sheib $89.95 special.  They used a matching grey but painted right over that sweet stripe…unbelievable.  That’s probably why it was so cheap.  Tony says we paid $50 bucks to Dave for it …I’m thinking it was a little more like $50 bucks each, but the certainty of that memory is lost to time.  I probably wasn’t present at that moment of truth.

Either way, the Fairmont wasn’t running.  Tony said he heard that Fairmont’s made great sleeper cars and that this one with the straight six under the hood could be a beast – not The Beast – that’s another moment of truth, but a beast.  The plan was that we would work on it in the neighbor’s garage, and when we were done with it we’d race it…Quigley Avenue or something.  Nothing like Norwalk or anything like that…at the time my ability to dream was a little stifled and suppressed by the stories I’d made up in the past.

It was supposed to turn out like this Fairmont.[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aDa9-9Fl7w?feature=player_embedded]

That Ford Fairmont would have been really bad-a$$…not to mention that we sawed out the steel plate behind the backseat (I think Tony did all the work) so it would also be an incredible camping machine. Picture it – just pop out that back seat and two people could easily sleep in the trunk (and backseat) with nothing more than a sleeping bag.  It was like a Chevy Avalanche but in 1987 – we were way ahead of our time.  And it would have been an incredible racing machine – hah!  I just thought of this – not only was it a sleeper*, it was also a sleeper.  Visionaries.

The only problem with the plan was that neither of us really had enough money to sink into this car to turn it around.  It was Tony’s neighbor with the garage right next door so he spent some time over there messing with it, but I just don’t remember being over there all that often.  I remember feeling powerless to do anything because I didn’t know very much about cars at all, I had no money, and I was too worried about looking bad to admit any of that to anybody that may be able to assist us.  I recall highlights such as getting that steel cut out, and actually getting the thing running with tons of starter fluid directly into the opened up carburetor.  That was mostly what was wrong with it, the carburetor, and Tony tinkered away enough with it that we got it running.  We were so psyched, we had the hood off but we just had to take it out for a ride.  That was the only ride I ever had in our bad-a$$ Ford Fairmont.

Eventually the neighbor got sick of that heap sitting in her garage.  Something happened to the transmission…I wasn’t around when it did and I don’t know that I ever really understood what…exactly…happened.  I didn’t care. I was busy having other powerful life altering learning events. Eventually that car ended up sitting on a gravel lot at Pearl and Bader outside of a friend of ours’ house, a house he was renting I think.  It sat there for a few months.  It seemed like forever when I’d drive by and still see that car sitting there.  Time moved a lot slower even normally then…a few months seems like years when you just turned 18.

Seeing that lost dream sitting there for ALL THAT TIME eventually made me start asking Tony what exactly happened to the transmission.  Was there anyway to fix it? Did you even get underneath there to check it out?  What happened when it stopped working?  We stopped there to reveal the answers to these questions, maybe it was just so I’d stop asking questions and I could find out for myself.

Tony was there, Bob was there, Ed was there, maybe Chris from inside the house was there (he wanted it out of there by then too).  I don’t remember how we got there, or too much on either side of the moment of truth.  We took the factory jack out of the trunk and put it under the car and started jacking it up.  It was one of those uni-body cars or whatever they called them at the time…they were making cars lighter to get better gas mileage so the days of a big heavy frame were over.  And the jack was one of those expanding diamonds…starts out flat and raises up just enough at the very top so you can get a tire off.

When I was a kid I was always warned about getting under cars on a jack.  I only heard the story once about the friend of the family whose son got crushed by a car.  That kind of story only needed to be heard once and I didn’t even have any of the details.  The only thing I really knew about the story was that it happened the same day he was playing with a Ouija board with his friends.  It was an effective story – I was left fearful of getting under cars and playing with Ouija boards.

For whatever reason, that fear was not there that day (probably so I could someday write this story and alter the course of somebody’s life by revealing the distinction “being present”).  I must have really been messing with Tony, pressing him about the transmission.  I got down on my back and slid myself in there.  Once I started looking at that transmission I realized where I was.  I didn’t see any major leaks, but it looked quite a mess around the bell housing with greasy gloppy stuff all around.

Then time went all slow motion on me.  My senses were already heightened because I had just realized where I was, and at the same time the voice was chattering as it does about not wanting to look like a big wuss, freaking out and pulling myself out from under that car.  It didn’t matter.

While those two things were happening, another simultaneous sound was happening, and I was hearing it at the same time the voice was telling me that you wouldn’t want to look like a wuss.  Hearing a cheap, piece of crap, yet still solid steel Ford factory tire jack break through the rusted out, unibody, not-frame of a 1978 Ford Fairmont sounds exactly the way you would expect it to sound.  When you’re under that Ford Fairmont it sounds like the sound of chewing Peanut Butter Captain Crunch recorded and played in slow motion at a really high volume.

There is where the moment of truth began.  Like I said in my last post the moment of truth is happening every moment, every second, of every minute of every hour, of every day.  The Truth/Love/Aletheia about it is that those seconds, minutes, hours, days don’t actually exist – they’re something we’ve made up, and agreed that they exist.  All there is are moments of truth (right now).  It’s useful to be able to relay the stories of things that have happened in the seconds, and minutes, and hours, and days gone by or the plans of the seconds, and minutes, and hours, and days ahead but they are not to be confused with truth.

Aletheia.  An immediate unconcealing.  A revealing of Truth.  Love, present, and experienced.

During the slow motion crunching sound, while looking at the greasy bell housing, the instinct to turn my head happened.  During the slow motion crunching sound, while my head was turning I saw the car getting lower.  There was no voice in my head.  There was only that slow motion crunching sound, the car getting lower, the increased pressure on my pectoral muscles where the welded seam of the unibody not-frame met the floor boards of the more fuel efficient-than-my-father’s-old-blue-1970-Ford-Galaxy-500-that-my-brother-wrecked 1978 Ford Fairmont.

Wide-awake.  Aware. Not enough experience around it to know that’s what I was, not like being light aware and wide-awake.  Hearing everything, not loudly but clearly and crisply.  Seeing that the car had stopped moving, feeling my chest pinned yet still able to take in and let out breath, lightly yet heavily.  Seeing out of the periphery vision the feet scurrying by my feet outside from under the lightning fast sleeper Ford Fairmont.  The gasps.  The oh no’s, the oh-my-God, oh-my-Gods, leading to the Ed, Ed, are you alrights.  Situation assessed here under the car…not the “voices in my head” assessment…a silent knowing assessment without language – a Self assessment.  Without words.  Head’s not smashed, breathing heavy but good, no send me into unconsciousness pains, not laughing either – but feeling good.  Feeling grateful, and appreciative, and I can say it now as a story – loved.  Dodged a bullet loved, though, got lucky loved…not intentional and not having caused it.  Not willfully present and mindful and Wise.

Wisdom it was nonetheless.  The second time I’d felt it.  A time in slow motion oneness with the moment.  A knowing, sensing everything while knowing nothing at all.  Not dodging death, but just not yet time to die.  Under that car, one of the things I most feared happened and I was not dead (good thing I hadn’t been using a Ouija board).

That was how the experience was for me – drawn out in story here for sure, and I want you to understand that talking about the moments that fill a 15 second time span as a watch ticks – telling the story about those moments is not those moments.  Most of the time we’re missing those moments with the dialogue we’re filling the space with.  But life occurs in those moments, those moments of truth (right now).  And it is possible to  intentionally experience moments right now without all of the noise and distraction and consideration about how you look and what they’ll think and just be grateful and appreciative of them scurrying about acting astonished about what just happened even though what just happened always happens and when you’re present you’re not surprised that it just happened.  We can be present and wise right now.

As my friends like to tell the story…everybody’s freaking out and saying are you alright, Ed are you alright?  Then there’s a silence and they wait for the answer. As calm as can be, Ed says, “Pick….the….car….up.”  And that was how it was for me – calm as can be.  They picked the car up, I slid out and the moments carried on.  I grinned as I do.

With Love,

Ed

* A sleeper is a car that looks to be ordinary, nothing special…until you pull up next to it to race and only then is its Truth/Love/Aletheia revealed.

Being at the Moment of Truth

Mindfulness.  Being Present.  Wisdom.  Living in the moment.  Right now.

These are terms, words or phrases describing phemonena that occur within our experience.  Understanding that the term is not the phenomena and that the term does little justice to relaying the experience of the phenomena is a worthwhile thing to understand.  These different realms of “knowing” (concept, phenomena, experience) fall under the broad heading of epistemologies.

Truth/Love/Aletheia is dedicated to broadening and expanding knowledge of Truth/Love/Aletheia (right now).  There are many other terms which can be used to “label” the phenomena, many terms that are “like” the terms above, and many terms which are confused with and thereby dillute the understanding of the phenomena.  Explaining the phenomena will almost always be a second best effort of actually experiencing the phenomena.

Allowing you to gain first hand experience of the phenomena of wisdom is my desire in writing.  Honestly, there’s little use for it, as in, it can’t be used for the normal things we want – making money, having power, getting what we (think we) want (usually a result of money and power), being admired, maintaining the illusion of control.  What it does allow for is a “clean” place to come from and operate in the world.  It occurs as peace in experience.  In the world I see and experience from people (and myself) a great deal of suffering often inflicted on people by other people, and almost always inflicted on oneself.

“Wisdom”, (aka Truth/Love/Aletheia, mindfulness, being present, living in the moment, etc), “is not something to learn.  Wisdom is something which will come out of your mindfulness.  So the point is to be ready for observing things, and to be ready for thinking.  This is called emptiness of your mind.”  (Suzuki – Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind)

During a previous post I spoke of enlightenment and a being all things and light and nothing.  We live in the so called real world however and most of the time we aren’t experiencing being light.  We are making dinners, and working with other people, and buying things, and singing, and eating and doing what we do.  Wisdom is a being enlightened all the time, doing the mundane, being-in-the-world.  This is where truth/love/aletheia is experienced at the moment of truth.

The moment of truth occurs every moment when you’re present.  In the normal course of events you may not necessarily notice the moments in your life when you were fully present unless somebody shares the story of their experience with you and distinguishes being present.  In the next few of my posts I’m going to share some moments of truth that I’ve had – many of these moments just happened, as in – I was going about my day to day business and then blam – I was present; mindful, and empty of mind all at the same time – a dialetheia.

Sometimes people relay stories about things that I’ve done.  I don’t even know they’re telling other people about them and I find it funny when I hear about it later.  I still can’t tell if they’re telling those stories because I’m admired, or they thought well of me, or they’re telling these stories as a warning to others.  At this point I’m love either way.  One of the stories people tell about me is the time the car fell on me.  For me it was just The Moment of Truth.

With Love,

Ed

Why I (We) Share

This blog is attempting to forge or carve out a (fairly) uncommon conversational space Being-In-the-World (not really new, because many have spoken from it over the centuries) it may occur to you a certain way.  I’m not sure what that way is exactly, but when I’ve listened to such conversations prior to being able to hear such conversations in my past, they occurred many different ways.  Gibberish was one way. Poor use of grammar and language was one way. Offensive was another way.  Pretentious was definitely a way.  In some cases, I would later be able to see, they occurred as a threat.  I would react to them as a threat – fight or flight – the lizard brain reactivated.  My ego really pissed off.  Me reacting self-righteously as a response to the domination that the conversational truths were imposing on me.

I’m not saying that all of these entries are those types because certainly I miss the mark from time to time in my use of language. Perhaps I hadn’t been fully present to and coming from that place of Truth/Love/Aletheia.  Truth/Love/Aletheia.  Fleeting joy.  When I re-read the entries later, and they re-presence now what was present when I wrote them, and it occurs as that space of freedom that Aletheia allows/creates/is and I’m recreated anew in that moment then I know I’ve honored myself.  Honored us.

Being present and not, it has had the thought, “What is the point of this blog?  Why do you share what you share even though it may never be read, or misconstrued if it is read?  Why risk offending people, or exposing yourself or your family to any response to these posts?  What makes your blog different from all the other exhibitionists out there blogging away?  Who do you think you are?  You do know that this is out there for the world to read.  You have to continue making a living…”, it rages on, “Have you ever met a management consultant that speaks complete gibberish?”

“Why, yes I have”, I laugh to myself.  The conversation clearly dis-pleased.

Today, just now, I had a glimpse of why I share.  Why we all share really.  A reason of sorts other than the clear Aletheia of it that, “You do, because you do.  They do because they do.”  It’s so fleeting too…trying to escape me even as I type.  I had no intention of making an entry today, but then it was there.  And now the normal interruptions of the day are attempting to flit it away.

I (We) share, because it speaks to our (I’m going to use some language here that isn’t quite it) common-ness, our one-ness, our in-common-ness, our being-ness.  Even the voyeurs that share things that expose more of the Lie (that is, the not Aletheia), the paparazzi who share the dirt, the ones who gossip and connive about others to get their way and be righteous and self-serving.  Those who ensnare us in their storytelling of fear (that is, the not Love).

Our machinery is much more receptive to the fear based conversation as we’re designed to propagate our own survival.  Because of this design which often conceals Truth we also aren’t as practiced at speaking or sharing the so what of it.  For certain we have a challenge hearing it, really letting it land in our space and alter our being.  Always watchful, always on guard protecting this loosely held together story of absurdity.

It is that letting it land in our being, having our experience land in someone else’s being, as close to a why as there is a why.  We want to be known.  We want our experience to be known.  It is our sharing that is our last gasp of hope for us revealing what we’ve forgotten.  What we’ve concealed.  What we all seek.  What makes us who we are.

We (I) share because we are.  And I want to type “because we are one” or “because we are known” but that will both illuminate and cloud what it is.  We share because we are.  We are you and I.  We are you and me.  We are we.  We share because we share this experience.

Just because we appear separated by this flesh bag, this space of air or form or illusion between us DOES NOT mean we aren’t sharing this experience.  Just because you’re reading my thoughts that I typed at 1:43 pm (EST) while it’s (Insert your current time and time zone here) does not mean that you weren’t a part of my experience.  Your experience is my experience.

They share (those Kardashians do) because they want to be known (they want to know they are known – because they are).  We watch and we listen and reflect to better know ourselves, to better know you, to better know we/I/you/me/us/truth/love/aletheia.  Who we all are.  Together.

They share their experience of God, their religion, their truth so you can acknowledge the parts of those truths that they’ve experienced for themselves as truth for yourself.  Because the parts that are true for them are true for you.  Not conceptual truth – Aletheia truth.  The parts that can’t actually be spoken about.

They share their camping trip to Middle Bass Island so you can experience those truths of being family of being love of being human of being free of being fun and know that we share those things from when you have experienced those truths.

They share their political beliefs – the ones for smaller government and caring for those in poverty – to be known.  Because those parts of their party that are truth for them are truth for you.  Even though they appear to be separated by party lines or border lines or panty lines.

The next time somebody speaks to you verbally, non-verbally, spatially, temporally – they want to be known and they want to know.  Be the space that allows knowing and being known.  You already are – get out of the way and let (you) both be.

When I’m present right now.  What is present is Truth/Love/Aletheia.  When Truth/Love/Aletheia are present.  Right now.  The only time Truth/Love/Aletheia is present right now. Truth/Love/Aletheia allow our Truth/Love/Aletheia present right now to be present right now.  Experienced.  This is why we (I) share.  This is what we share.  Right now.  We share it so we’ll reveal that we share it.  Right now.

With Love.  Right Now.  With Aletheia.  With Love,

Ed

P.S.  If this resonates in your experience I’d love to hear comments on what the experience looks/feels like.  What do you hear and what does it feel like?  It’s meant to be experiential rather than epistemological…challenging etymologically.  Thanks for reading.  I love you.  I love me.  I love us.  I love.

Heavy Blog

If you were wondering whether or not I’ve noticed – I’ve noticed.  This blog is pretty heavy.  Not the sort of thing that you might try to digest without having a “tasty beverage to wash it down”.  All of the readings should be digested while putting your own life and own experiences before you to act as a sort of filter to read my experiences through.  After all, these experiences are shared and we make meaning of them together; you as the listener and me as the speaker or writer, in this case.  Together we can expect to be left somehow different than we were prior to reading/writing them.

This entry will be different.  Short even.  It’s sole purpose is to entertain.

One of the things that I found out about myself, during my training and development and receiving my certification in “Developing Leadership Through Emotional Intelligence”, that surprised me was the usefulness of my sense of humor.  Now, I’ve alway known I’m funny no matter what my wife says.  I’ve also always known that I’m pretty “deep”…one of the deepest people I’ve ever come across.  Deep also occurs as heavy.

At times when spending some time with me in an intense coaching session or even just discussing nothing at all I can leave people a little drained.  I can leave myself a little drained as well.  One of the best methods for quick rejuvenation and to move yourself back into the area of the Positive Emotional Attractor is a good laugh.

To that end, I leave you with the following “commercial” for my upcoming YouTube Television series – Survivor: Middle Bass Island.  Feel free to subscribe so you’ll be notified of new episodes, make comments (5 to 1 ratio positive to negative, please), and hopefully have a laugh.

If you prefer the facebook viewing experience, view the Survivor: Middle Bass Island page.

Being love present and experienced occurs for me as laughter.  For me the best times are laughing with my family.  Hopefully it’ll be “fun love” for you too.

Laughing Out Loud With Love,

Ed