I’m usually flexible about what I talk about so I
listen to what people have to say and decide
well maybe that’s the thing
to talk about. So we’re going to talk about two worlds for a minute.
We
all exist with them. We’ve all heard the old statement “We’re in this
world but not of it.”
So let’s try to see what that comes out with and
maybe we can make it kind of worthwhile.
So we’ll split down the middle and we’ll put a line
across and we've got the Manmade
World over here, the manmade world, and
we all live in it, everyday of the week. And
we have the Real World of
Living Beings. And we are OF that world, we are living beings.
And if we
get those confused it can probably cause us a lot of unnecessary
aggravation.
And if there’s anything I don’t
like it’s aggravation. So if I can just miss some of them it
helps a whole
lot.
Manmade World: Machines,
Ideas, Ideals, Standards, Games
So the manmade world is the world of machines, ideas,
ideals, standards, few other things
maybe, and games. So we can make
machines and we set standards for them, right John?
And if they don’t,
we’d scrap them. Or holler at somebody, real loud. I was down in John’s
shop the other day and some of the machines weren’t going according to
standards.
They making noises, and they
weren’t supposed to make noises. And so that hassled a
little bit.
Caused a whole slowdown. So we can set the
standard for a machine and if it don’t
fit it,
there’s something wrong with it. Human beings are not machines, they’re
living beings.
Ideas
We can set up an idea, I can invent on and I can go
out and propagate it a little bit and give it
to lots of people, I might
even set me up a school somewhere and put out these ideas, and you
could
come study, and if you, I’ll give you an examination and if you don’t pay
it back exactly
as I wrote it, I’ll flunk you. And it
don’t mean a thing. The idea may not more be true than the
man in
the moon. But, at least we set it up.
Ideals
Ideals we find there’s a use for. You have an ideal
as to how far from the property line your
building is to be put. You have
an ideal of how fast everybody’s to drive on the highway. No-
body’s paying
much attention to it, but the police take it serious. And nobody else does
very
much. And we can have those ideals, we can have a jillion other
ideals of what ought to be,
what should be, and what so forth. Now as long
as it relates to non-humans it’s kind of halfway
valid, but the minute you
put it on humans it’s not so valid.
Standards
And we can set up a standard for something. If I want
to buy a pair of shoes I can, or even
order them, I say a certain size,
and they come in, I can wear them, they feel all right, I can walk
in tell
a man and tell him I want a size so-and-so suit and he hands it to me and
I put it on and
go away. I can go in and look at the numbers on a shirt
and say I’ll take that shirt. I’m not going
to try it on. And it’ll
fit when I get there because it’s built according to standards.
Games
And of course there’s many
games that we play. We can play baseball, we can play football,
we can
play business games, we can play marriage games, and most people forget
those are
games and they don’t realize they have all the things of a game.
Players, Rules, Officials,
Rewards or Penalties
A game has, number one,
players. And then it has rules, or it’s not a game. Then it has officials
of the game, and then it has rewards or penalties. Don’t call them
punishment, they’re merely
penalties. So let’s take a player playing
football. He plays according to the rules and there’s a
man out there with
a whistle that’s official, and if he don’t play according to the rules he
gives
him a penalty. He gets too many of them,
he throws him out of the game. If he plays the game
according, he might
get a certain reward, he gets glory anyway. If he’s in
a professional game,
why he gets a lot of money for it. Let’s take
traffic game, that’s a fairly common one and most
of us play it.
There’s rules to the traffic game and we all
know them pretty well. Right? We’ve
heard of
them, anyway. Bill, you’ve even heard of them, haven’t you?
Yep (laughter). And
then
there’s officials out there that go along and
check up to see whether you’re playing the
game. Now he drives a little
car with flashing lights on top of it and if you don’t play the game
according to the rules, you get a penalty. If you play the game according
to the rules you get
a reward, you get to keep your driver’s license.
And we could go on to business, and
there’s gobs of those rules already set out for
us, and
officials, the same with marriage and so on down the line. Family
games and so forth. Now in
some of them, you can, the players can more or
less write the rules as they go. But it’s well
that somebody knows the
rules. If they don’t know the rules, how are they going to play the
game?
They don’t know.
Don't Assume Others Know the
Rules If You Made Them Up
So maybe it would be well if we say we’re playing the
family game, those things do exist,
you know. There’s certain rules and
maybe the members of that, the players of that particular
game, can
somewhat write the rules. But it’s no reason to assume that everybody
knows them
because you thought of them. You have to kind of spread those
around. Even the baseball
rules are written in a book, football rules are
written in a book, golf rules are written in a book,
traffic games are
written in a book, they even give you one so you can go down and see if
you
know it. So, it might be that if we put a little examination like a
driver’s license, you got a book,
you read through it, and then see if you
get a license to play that game. Okay?
To My Advantage to Play
According to the Rules
And it would definitely be to my advantage to play
the game according to the rules. But before I
could play any game
according to the rules I better know the rules. One time Dennis and I went
to take a board exam in, being registered reps in selling stocks and
bonds. They have a whole
bunch of rules. You been through that? They got a
whole bunch of rules. You had to read them,
is that right?
And if you don’t play that game according to the
rules, hmm? They get real nasty
about it, is that right? So, they
gave you an exam to see if you had really read the rules and know
about
them, is that right? So now you have no excuse
if you don’t play the game according to the
rules, is that right?
Right. Goodbye license.
Penalties Are Not Punishment
And maybe other penalties goes along with it—no
punishment, understand, just penalties.
Rewards
And if you do play the game according to the rules,
it has certain rewards that’s very interesting,
is that right? Good
money-making scheme. So, you can have the game you can play. But you
have
to know the rules.
People Think Everyone Knows
the Rules in Relationships--They Don't, Necessarily
Now I think that when most people have some human
relationship they assume that every-
body knows the rules. Even though you
made them up as you went. We assume that they
know them. I have seen
people scolding two-year-old kids and one-year-old kids, uh,
assuming that
that kid knew all the rules. We were sitting over here in the coffee ship
yesterday afternoon and there was a lady got very upset at one kid for
hugging another little
kid and another mother got all upset at a
little—not more than eighteen months old—because
it was wandering around a
little bit. Now that kid was supposed to have known the rules.
Mama knew
them, I guess, but the kid didn’t. Mama didn’t know the rules very well
from
what she named the kid. She named a pretty little blond kid Cherokee.
Can you imagine that?
I have a friend who has a little girl, he named her
Jebediah. And I told him when that kid was
twelve years old she’d be a
murderer, she’d shoot him—she’s getting close, and I still think
I’m
right. Jebediah for a pretty little girl. Can
you imagine that?
People May or May Not Know
What's to Their Advantage
So, maybe there’s some
rules about things like that once in a while you know. So all these
things
that we don’t think of, that people know or don’t know the rules, we feel
they should
know them and play them, even though they’re this high and
they grew up without ever
hearing what the rules were, what the rewards
were or what the penalties were. So when most
every person in the world is
intelligent enough to try to do what they see as being to their
advantage—now, what they see as being to their advantage may look to you
like they didn’t
know nothin’. See, I couldn’t
see it’d ever be to my advantage to harm another person. But I
know a lot
of people who feel it’s to their advantage to cheat, and to steal and to
do a whole
bunch of things. They haven'’ learned a bunch of rules that
I’ve learned somewhere along the
way. They just don’t see that. I see that
some people feel that it’s to their advantage to stick up
for their
rights. I’ve never seen that one work very well. So I don’t consider
that’s to my
advantage.
When We Understand Games, We
Can Then See What's To Our Advantage
So when we begin to see that we’re in this world and
that it does have standards, it does have
ideas, it does have ideals, and
we have many mechanical situations, we can begin to think
of what is to my
advantage. And certainly maybe these people that start out as new guests
at the party are at least entitled to be told or taught and maybe given a
little examination to
see if they know the rules of the game. Remember,
they came in as privileged invited guests
and given a couple of slaves to
look after them, and a few things, but they weren’t taught the
rules of
the game as a basic thing. They don’t know what it is. And maybe every
once in a
while the rules get changed.
Every Person on Earth Is
Unique
Now in the real world of
living beings there are no two of which are alike. No two living
beings
are exactly alike. writes on board) Now how
would you set up a standard for any-
thing that isn’t any, two or more
exactly alike. You can’t set it up.
We have to recognize that each person is a unique
work of art. Some of them, admittedly,
are cartoons, but (laughter)
they’re still works of art out here, you know.
There's No Way to Get Along
Unless You Know the Rules
So, unless they can get some information as to how to
live in this man-made world they
won’t know. There’s no way to get along
in it unless you learn some of the rules. Whatever
those rules may be. "Standards" belongs over in the man-made world,
it’s not right, it’s not
wrong, or anything else. It simply is. When
there’s no two alike there can be no standards.
Judging People Is to See
Them As Machines
So then you couldn’t set up and say this one is bad,
this one’s good, etc. But man being, living,
in the manmade world, has
decided to set up standards for people and we built great
institutions
around setting standards. As though man were a mere machine.
Health
We have the medical arts, for instance, which is a
great game that goes on, and they set up
a standard of health, we’ll say
here. And they set a standard for it and it doesn't fit any
person in the
world.
There is a standard set up
but it doesn’t fit anybody. It’s an average over a whole bunch of
people.
And if any one of you go in to be examined tomorrow by a member of the
medical
arts to see if you’re totally healthy or normal, we’ll put
“normal” there (on the board) also,
that’s something, and I compare you to
a bunch of averages, how to you come out?
[Several in
group: abnormal.] You’ll be abnormal in some way, won’t you?
Now
you’re a patient! (laughter)
Normal and Abnormal
I went to school and studied
this stuff, it sounded pretty good to me, they
told me that the
first two years I was in school I would study the norm.
The normal, so I would recognize
the abnormal when I got into clinical
situations in the last three or four years. So, that
sounded pretty good
and I studied all these norms we had mannequins and we had charts
and we
had drawings, and we had books, with all kinds of tables in them. I
learned them
diligently. And then one day they set me out in front of a
person who walked in. He didn’t
fit it! Funny old guy, he didn’t fit it at
all. So, immediately, I had a patient. Because he
didn’t
fit it. Now, there wasn’t a thing in the world wrong with
the old guy, at all, but he didn’t fit
the norm.
So, you see, everybody in the eyes of the medical
arts is a patient. Because you’re
abnormal SOME way,
because you don’t fit that norm.
Theology
And comes along and we have theology, that’s a good
subject. In medicine they set up a
standard of “good.”
Just as though you were a machine. But there’s many different
theologies, you know, lots of them. And they set up a standard of what’s
good. Well, I don’t
think there’s anybody in here that could fit all the
standards of good there is running around.
I
know some groups that set up a standard that it’s good to dance. Others
set up, “Oh, how
horrible that is,” that’s bad. I know some that set up
it’s about as horrible a thing as could be
in the world if you drink a cup
of coffee and smoked a cigarette. Even if you did
either one,
much less both. And so then, most people are bad. And
if you are bad you feel guilty. Right?
And, so that can go on and on and on as to what’s
good. Even the day of the week that you
pretend
to be holy that day.
Power
Policies
Then we have power policies. That’s politics, I think
they call that, but we’ll call it power
policies. Now they tell you
what’s "in." A few years ago, back about nineteen and the forties,
it was in to
love the Russians and hate the Japanese. And then almost overnight, we
switched it.
You love the Japanese and hate the Russians. And it was
there, some people couldn’t switch that
fast. So, they weren’t in anymore,
they were out. And so then you are, have an “out” feeling.
Big Business
And then comes along another one here, Big Business.
It’s in a good deal, that’s a big one.
We said big business, not
just little things that most of us get involved in. ... has the newest
thing
that is pretty, your car’s two years old, it’s not pretty any more.
Your furniture that’s three years old
is not pretty anymore unless it’s a
hundred years old. Then it begins to get pretty again (laughter).
By the
same token, a suit you bought four or five years ago, even though it’s
perfectly good,
you haven’t worn it hardly at all, the lapels are too
wide, or the tie's too narrow or too wide, the
shirt collar is too short,
or too long, the lady’s dress is too short, too long, wrong shape, the
whole
bit. So pretty soon you are no longer beautiful and pretty, your
house is all out of style and
everything, you’re
ugly. And all the things you have are ugly and unless you go buy some new
ones this week, you’ve had it!
Standards Get Changed
Not long ago, I don’t know whether many of you
noticed it or not, the change in how much
you should weight got changed
suddenly. Ten pounds, over night. If you didn’t
get the ten
pounds on you was too skinny. Or, if you was up a little bit
you was only three pounds
overweight, where the week before you were
thirteen. So all this got changed suddenly.
What Happens When You
Compare Yourself to Standards
So now, if you’re supposed to be, according to all
"authorities," you’re supposed to be
normal, good, in and beautiful, and
when you compare yourself to the standards, as
though you were a machine,
you will come up bad, ugly, abnormal and out! (laughter)
Is that correct? Does everybody here work on that, just a little bit?
Don’t kid me! You’re
down buying things so that the other things you have
are out, aren’t they? They’re not
pretty anymore, they’re ugly! Are you
always working on yourself to get made over?
Don’t you make a pretty good
piece of cash every week making people over? [Yeah… ]
Fix them up, so they’re pretty. Before they were ugly, when they came in,
they’re pretty
when they leave. But you know, no telling what happens
later.
Little Joke
I was in a place to get a haircut the other day and
there was a sign on the man’s mirror in
front of the chair I was sitting
on getting a haircut that said “I’m a beautician, not a magician.”
(laughter)
So, you can have one of those if you want to.
Beautician, not a magician.
To
Compare Yourself to Standards Is to Be Manipulated
So you see we live with these things as though we
were mere machines. And we never stop
to think that all these difficulties
that we’re spending on are purely made for us. You know.
If I set up a
standard and you don’t fit this standard, what’s wrong with you? You’re
bad,
ugly, abnormal or out, is that right? Huh?
(laughter) So, there’s a story told about a man
who
fell in with a bunch of thieves somewhere and they beat him up and
left him in a ditch for
dead. And a doctor came
by and he looked over there and he said he’s already dead, no
patient any
more, and he went on his way. A lawyer came by and said he’s in bad shape,
he’s
probably drunk, so he didn’t bother with
him. And an official come down the road and
he
looked at him and sheriff said he’s just an old drunk so he left him
alone. But one guy came
along and looked over on him and said, well, that
guy looks like he’s not feeling too good.
So he went over and did a little
work on him, he had some wine with him, he had some
olive oil, so he had
nothing else, he used that for medication, poured it in the guy’s wounds
and he got him up and got him into town and put him in a hotel and paid
the bill for a few days.
And so that man was called a neighbor, to the man
who was in the ditch. Because he did
something about
it. He didn’t come to see if he was bad or ugly or abnormal or out,
he just saw
the old boy was hurt a little bit. And somebody said that that
was his neighbor. Now that’s the
only neighbor he had, was the guy that
got him up and got him into town. Nobody else was his
neighbor, especially
all those guys that left him there, and certainly not the guys that put
him
there. You could hardly call them neighbors, you know.
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