Altering Old, Limiting Realities

Two stories: The first takes place in the Los Angeles Police Department, the other within the ratified art world of New York.

A rookie cop on the Los Angeles police force reported for duty on a vice squad, and found out that his new precinct held an unusual lottery. It turned out that this precinct included a really terrible beat, in a dangerous section of the city. None of the vice cops ever wanted to patrol this area—so after years of fielding objections, the precinct captain had finally come up with a solution he thought was fair.
Every night, as the shift started, the captain held up a bag of marbles. Every marble in the bag was black, except for one. Filing slowly to the front of the room, each cop pulled a marble from the bag and from the marble learned his fate.

Whichever cop drew the single odd-colour marble had to brace himself for a descent into the neighbourhood they dreaded. The atmosphere was stressed and miserable—moments of happy camaraderie were rare. The rookie soon found himself dragging his feet about going to work. Twice he pulled the odd-colour marble and discovered the beat to be every bit as unsavoury as everyone had said. But he managed to survive it.

One night the rookie walked to the front of the marble line, dumped out the marbles, and deliberately chose the odd-colour marble. The next night he did it again. Night after night, he specifically requested that one marble. He no longer worried about losing the marble lottery. Now, for better or worse, his fate was in his own hands.¹ What he had experienced as enormously stressful, he chose to transform. Through his actions and example, the mood and morale in the precinct began to shift.

Across the continent, in New York City, a curator of the Museum of Modern Art spoke of the impact the advent of modern art had on the traditional art world. He said that “modern art, from Picasso’s scrambled faces to Andy Warhol’s soup cans—acts of imagination with no supporting consensus and only the tiniest circle of initial understanding—produced [enormous] changes [in the way we look not only at art, but] at the world. It ignored traditional texts, sidestepped familiar standards, and required people to make judgments without the comfort of stable rules and categories, and to navigate in seas of uncertainty, even absurdity, without a map.”² Critics have said of Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” that it is “a deliberate throw of the gauntlet to the entire history of art. You can see it again and again and still be struck dumb by its audacity, its freshness and its courage.”³ And, “It changed art more than any other. Before it, paintings at least had to pretend to be decorative and cogent. Afterward anything went.”⁴
Both the realities that existed in the L.A. precinct and the art circles of New York had amassed years of agreement. One fostered a reality of anxiety, stress, and low morale. The other set the standard for purchase price, reputation, and the au courant. In each situation, longstanding realities of the way it was were altered by a new conversation.

What was “real” in each of these cases?

Most of us think of language as describing a reality that’s out there—other people, things, the universe, even ourselves. We talk about ourselves and we say things like, “I am this way or that, I am outgoing/I am cautious.” We talk about ourselves and others almost as if we were objects to be described. That’s not an inappropriate or incorrect use of language. It is, though, just one use of language. Language can and does describe; language also has the power to create. It can bring new worlds into being—worlds that may start off not as real. Possibility is not real at its origin—it’s something we create as real, and then stand for as a reality.

Richard Rorty, contemporary philosopher, makes this point: “We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there and the claim that truth is out there. To say that the world is out there—that it is not our creation—is to say that most things are the effects of causes and do not include [us]. Truth, however, cannot be out there—cannot exist independently of [us].”

“The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own—unaided by [language] of human beings—cannot. [If] we could ever become reconciled to the idea that most of reality is indifferent to our descriptions of it and that [we are] created by [language], then we should at last [know] that truth is made rather than found. The world does not speak. Only we do.”

In Landmark we say that the reality, conditions, and circumstances of the future do not yet exist as facts; they only exist as a product of the conversations we’re in, we’re having, and in fact are. Both in the case of the rookie cop and the modern artists, the introduction of and standing for a new conversation shifted the existing reality—life’s possibilities and actualities were altered.
People who act out of inspired action do so by creating a possibility—articulating a future in such a way that it alters the way the present occurs. And because the present is now different, people act differently. Because people act in a way that is consistent with a new future, that future can then become possible.… But of course, as with any uncharted territory, there are inevitably gaps, stops and starts, missing bits. At these times, when there are gaps or something is or seems missing, it’s missing not like an invalidation, but like a possibility.
An example of something missing, but like a possibility comes up in Picasso’s juxtaposition of classic western art with African art as he created “Les Demoiselles.” He wasn’t all that confident about what he had done. The more he identified the abstracting quality of tribal art, the more he floundered and kept modifying the painting, sensing something was missing. Adding tribal masks, for him, was “a calculated risk, taken very late in the game.” For many years—until the painting was recognized as a modernist triumph—Picasso insisted something was missing. “‘Les Demoiselles’ holds within it a touching doubt, the angst of modern art as well as its trail to the future.”
Living in the face of a possibility often can carry with it that doubt or angst and can sometimes be difficult—difficult in the ways poetry, music, or a deep intimacy can be difficult, because it doesn’t explain, it doesn’t rationalize, it doesn’t describe, and it doesn’t define. Even at its earliest stages, possibility leaves us with power and freedom, and once fulfilled, is no longer a possibility—it is a reality that now allows for whole new futures.

1“Rookie cop” story adapted from Harper’s article “In Defiance of Gravity” by Tom Robbins (September, 2004).
2 Kirk Varnedoe, “Entering the Software Century,” ARTnews, September 1992, pp. 57, 58, and 142.
3 Thomas Hoving, “Nothing Like This Picasso,” Los Angeles Times, 5/8/07.
4 Michael Kimmelman, “Picasso’s ‘Demoiselles d’Avignon,” New York Times, 5/6/07.
5 Jackie Wullschlager, “The day modern art was invented: Picasso’s Demoiselles,” Financial Times, 1/5/07.

glasses as a metafore

Some of us think happiness is dependent on things outside of ourselves—we’ll be happy when…or happy because…or happy if… Others think of happiness as a rare and fleeting thing, or are dubious from the start that it’s even possible, kind of like there’s an underlying position or commitment of “I’m not happy.” If that’s true about you, it is a pretty useful thing to know.

Being happy can’t have some “thing” in mind because it is not some “thing” in the foreground; it’s a background stand that creates the possibility of what’s in the foreground. “I am happy,” is a matter of saying—a sacred saying, a saying that has no ground underneath it, but becomes the ground. No rationale, no evidence. Being happy exists only as a possibility—it’s an inside job. If we can say, “I am happy,” and it’s true because we said so, that’s power, instantaneous, and timeless. And that’s the ultimate act of creativity.

Glasses saw better or only different worlds…Whatever reality may be, it will be shaped by the lens through which we see it. When we are born we are handed multiple lenses: genetic inheritance, gender, a specific culture and the variables of our family environment, all of which constitute our sense of reality. Looking back later, we see that we have perhaps lived less from our true nature than from the vision of reality ordained by the lenses we used.^*

The good news is that our actions are not correlated to some reality ordained by those lenses, but rather to how the world “occurs” to us. With the unsettling of old realities, stepping to one side and another, we become interested in what might be, what we can imagine. “Reality” is a phenomenon that arises in language. Language is both the ultimate reality and the medium through which reality is brought forth—there is no reality “per se,” no fixed reality. There’s only how we see it, how we say it is—it’s interpretation all the way down.

It’s language—what we say (with and about others, ourselves, and the world at large) that constitutes who we are. Getting that at the most fundamental level alters the very nature of what’s possible—not merely in the way we think about ourselves, but in the actual experience and expression of who we are. Language is inseparable from who we are, and what gives us access to our true nature—to the full panoply of being human.

^*James Hollis, The Middle Passage

possibilities are there when you bypass walls which you place up

Nothing is so reckless as waiting for certainty—that’s a game we are sure to lose. Anyone who runs a business, chooses a mate, or just drives down the street knows there’s a risk. When the possibility of power, effectiveness, and freedom arises, we often find ourselves asking “what if the ball actually goes over the fence…. What if it doesn’t?” The question of whether something will happen or not is irrelevant to the phenomenon of possibility. There is no certainty as an inevitability, or predictability of the outcome—we are the ones saying something is possible. Real power occurs when we know we have something to say about the way things are—that we have access to the state of affairs beyond just reporting.
Creating possibility is risky business. Creation is a great risk, a kind of ultimate risk—the willingness to take a stand with no evidence. It’s hard to provide evidence, or make any real argument for a place where life can show up as a creation, but it is in, although within that that domain that the full world available to us in being human can be explored and lived. We cheat ourselves when we try to reduce the risk. What’s critical, what makes a difference, is to be left with a choice. And to be left with a choice means to be left fully at risk. Stimulating those risks is inseparable from living.

In virtually every human society, ‘he hit me first’ or ‘he started it’ provides an acceptable rationale for what comes next. It’s thought that a punch thrown second is legally and morally different than a punch thrown first. The problem with the principle of even-numb redness is that people count differently. People think of their own actions as the consequences of what came before, they think of other people’s actions as the causes of what came later, and that their reasons and pains are more palpable, more obvious and real, than that of others.

These are positions and ideas we all “wind up” playing out. When we “are” right, embedded in that truth is an equal truth that someone else is wrong—it’s not a matter of accuracy, it’s a matter of being. We can’t be happy, vital, and loving while we’re being right, making someone wrong, or justifying our positions—one displaces the other. The “rightness” of our positions also precludes us from being open to seeing other points of view.

We have a choice about what’s at play. When we elect to transform ways we wound up being, we move to a place of freedom, a place of possibility. Our points of view and positions can then move from fixed to malleable, from closed to open—where each person has an honoured place in the dialogue.

The stuff of wars, soap operas, divorce courts, Hamlet, and more all borrow on that equation, as do we. While we might wish we’d left that even-numberedness to our childhood and adolescence, it’s not to be. The dynamic of dealing with issues that are unwanted, yet persist continues to play out in board rooms, neighborhoods, marriages, and between nations—we justify, we blame, we complain.

Issues that are unwanted, yet persist can be a powerful impetus for change, as evidenced by the progress of human rights, for example. But there’s another world of things that are unwanted, yet persist—things that we complain about over and over, like some aspect of our relationships or jobs that is not working, and yet we find ourselves keeping around.

If we put what’s “unwanted, yet persists” together with “fixed ways of being,” we get what we call a “racket.” It’s a “mash up” of sorts (a web buzzword). In a mash up, one web application is combined with another, making both applications more productive and robust—you get something greater than the sum of the parts. If you mash up what’s unwanted, yet persists (which is most likely occurring as a complaint) and a fixed way of being, you also get something greater than the sum of its parts, but in this case, the yield heads in the wrong direction—the combination is unproductive or more accurately, counterproductive.

A complaint is some kind of opinion or judgment of the way things “should” or “shouldn’t be.” The evaluative component isn’t a commentary on facts that are true or false, accurate or not, but again how we think things should be. By fixed way of being we mean acting in a predictable and repetitive manner (like always frustrated, always upset, always angry, always nice, always annoyed, always suspicious, always confused, etc.). Whatever our fixed way of being is, it’s not something we have a choice over. It’s just there—it shows up automatically when the complaint shows up. It’s also worth noting that a recurring complaint doesn’t cause the way of being, nor does the way of being cause the recurring complaint—they simply come together in one package. The whole point here, though, is that it’s a fixed way of being, not a possible way of being.

The term “racket” comes from the days of big-city gangsters and street-level criminals who conducted questionable activities—loan-sharking, bribery, larceny—usually set up to get some kind of payoff, camouflaged by an acceptable cover above suspicion. In a “racketeering” operation, the efforts at concealing what’s going on behind the scenes can become quite elaborate so as to protect and ensure the success of the operation. We borrow the term racket as it’s applicable to our contemporary lives and because it carries with it many of the same properties—deception, smoke screens, payoffs, etc.

Sometimes persistent complaints originate with us, other times they come at us from someone else. It’s harder to see that we’re in “racket mode” with complaints that come at us, because it looks like somebody else is the persistent complainer, and we’re just an innocent bystander.

But under closer scrutiny, it turns out we too have complaints—complaints about their complaints. Our matching complaint might show up like, “don’t they understand, don’t they know how it is for me, why are they nagging, don’t they see everything I’m doing for them?” When we complain, we feel quite justified that our response is appropriate to the situation.

We explain the rationale behind our complaints to interested (and uninterested) parties, and point out how pleased we are with ourselves for taking the necessary steps to sort things out—we have a certain fondness for our attempts, for “trying.” We might get our friends, family, or co-workers to agree that we’re dealing with our complaints the best we can.

If they point out that perhaps we’re the one perpetuating the problem, we could feel misunderstood, put out, even busted. Seen from a distance, there can be something almost endearing about how we go about all this—as if it’s part of our authentic and sincere spirit—but actually, our rationale for doing what we do is another thing entirely. This is the camouflage or cover-up part. The deceptive nature of a racket and the allure of the payoff keep us from realizing the full impact rackets have in our lives.

The payoffs for keeping rackets around usually show up in several ways: being right and making others wrong (not the factual kind of right, but thinking that we are right and the other person is wrong), being dominating or avoiding domination, justifying ourselves and invalidating others (attributing cause to some thing or person other than ourselves), engaging in the win/lose dynamic (not “winning” like a celebration with trophies, applause, or congratulations to the opponent, but winning such that someone else is the loser or is lessened in some way).

 These payoffs are like facets of a diamond—although one facet might be more dominant than another (and we might deny or not be aware that some aspect of a payoff is active in our case), they’re really all at play.

The pull of these payoffs is often compelling enough to get us to give up love, vitality, self-expression, health, and happiness. That’s a ridiculously strong force. Those costs are the standard fare of a racket.  It’s pretty obvious that we can’t be happy, vital, and loving while we’re making someone wrong, dominating someone, being right, or justifying ourselves—one displaces the other. This is where choice comes into the picture.

Rackets, although one thing, have two forms of existence (somewhat like ice and steam are two forms of H2O). One form of a racket shows up as “I am X, Y, or Z.” The second shows up as “ahhh, I have a racket that is X, Y, or Z.” When we are the racket, it shapes and determines our way of being. But when we have a racket, it has very little power over our way of being. We have a choice about what’s at play—about giving up our rackets, our positions, our unproductive ways of being. When we elect to transform our default ways of being—being right, coming out on top (the even-numb redness, so to speak)—we move to a place of freedom, a place of possibility.

The question then becomes: How do I express my life? What would be, for me, the most extraordinary, created, invented life?  It becomes a matter of art, of design. How extraordinary are the everyday aspects of our lives; how rich our lives are, how full of opportunity, when we act on the possibility of living life fully.


Hundreds of flavours of ice cream, countless selections of movie channels, an infinite choice of mates, our daily round of work and play, our incessant getting and spending—the world of “more, better, different” is the air we breathe and its pull is ubiquitous.
It looks a lot like this: we search around and move around and do things and act and keep expanding and going for more or better and sometimes we get kind of stuck. But then we break out and we find a new place in life and we are off again expanding and growing and we keep on doing things and often get more from or better at doing that. And that’s what life’s like. Growing and expanding and learning and getting more, experimenting, trying things out differently. We might avoid the question “is this it” or “is this all there is” for a while, especially when we don’t have enough of what we’re after—like money, status, or comfort. But after we’ve got “enough,” the odds are we’ll visit those questions yet again.

More, better, different is the language of change—it’s comparative, defined and understood in light of the past. It’s about becoming. The language of possibility doesn’t necessitate changing anything. Possibility originates in the future, not the past. It’s about being, not becoming. Creating possibility is a stand, a declaration of who we are and what we’re out to create. It’s not taking what is and changing it—it’s taking what isn’t, and having it be. It’s about creating an extraordinary life as a place from which to come rather than a place to get—it’s about living life as a creative act.