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“It is a mistake to think that the
past is dead. Nothing that has ever happened is quite
without influence at this moment. The present is merely
the past rolled up and concentrated in this second of time.
You, too, are your past. Often
your face is your autobiography. You are what you are because
of what you have been; because of your heredity stretching
back into forgotten generations; because of every element of
environment that has affected you, every man or woman that has
met you, every book that you have read, every experience that
you have had.
All these are accumulated in your
memory, your body, your character, your soul. So with a
city, a country, and a race; it is its past, and cannot be
understood without it.” - Will Durant
At the root of FLOS beliefs are
the following:
We owe our current lives to almost
everything else, not our own doing.
In the brightened Century of Self,
self-importance is key, and we've done that, in large part,
marvelously.
Now, the question comes (IHMO):
What do we owe all of our life to?
I can only answer this in part, and
here is this part now.
It is through Nature's Lottery,
Nurture's Scaffolding, and the times we live in.
We give too much credit to
ourselves for our "stead" in life.
-Coaches take too much credit for a
player's outcomes.
-Parents too much credit or blame
for their children's development.
-Leaders get too much credit or
blame for their success or failure.
Almost everything we are is not
because of something we did (which is and of itself, a piece
of Nature's Lottery)...
THIS IS A SURPRISE to people!
This notion is counter-intuitive to
BS.
We have been taught that it was our
hard work, and attention to __________ and whatever, not luck,
not Nature's Lottery, or Nurture's Lottery, or the times we've
lived in. We were taught it was through our own diligence, our
own efforts, our own decisions, and choice-making that has
produced this "life" we have now, when in fact...we are bit
players!
In general, we just can't take
credit for much. It's the mystery of life that can reduce
almost all of what we thought was "our doing" - our will, our
motivation, effort, energy, choice, hard work, and so forth.
Please feel free to add to the list
your own "reasons" for why you are the way you are and what
you BE, DO, HAVE, and BECOME.
NOW, this surprise alone will be
enough of a shock to turn people off to this program, because
we want to claim the rights our self-importance has
provided us...!
For surely, we have seen those lazy
people, those addicts, those ne’r-do-wells, those
_____________ and that is not due to anything other than their
own __________________.
When in fact, I believe and thus
put forward as a FLOS axiom: We have only participated to a
small extent in any of this... And while it feels like it's all
us (ego's game)... we are but the vehicle that experiences,
learns, grows, AND develops as a resultant, not as a cause!
Even waking up in the morning can
be reduced to Nature and Nurture and Time, or NNT, as we might
refer in an equation.
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