What IS is what is.

That's not my attempt at a Zen koan or anything.

It's just a fact of reality that I don't think many people get. And it's wierd, because until I accepted and understood this fact I spent quite a lot of time being unhappy.

Okay, if you're not interested in my mental calisthenics, you may want to skip this one, 'cause I just got this bug in my ear and I'm sort of rolling it around between my fingers and just seeing what it is here.

Anyway...

I think part of the reason is that, for whatever reason, we tend to think that if we accept a situation as being what it is, then we are defeated by that situation... The situation has beaten our will. But as long as we refuse to accept a situation for what it is, then we have a chance of changing it.

I don't know where this comes from. (And I freely admit it may only be ME that feels this way... Although... I kind of doubt it.)

But I no longer see things that way. Now I believe that by accepting what a situation is allows me to clearly look for ways AROUND the parts of the situation I wish to change.

Like, I want to be a filmmaker but I don't have anything that would convince a production company to hire me. For some 12 or 13 years I refused to accept that as truth. "I'm just as good as 90% of the people getting paid to work in film! They SHOULD hire me!" If I accepted the situation as it was I would never get paid to make movies.

(Weak example, I know... But applicable. You can find something better from your own life, probably.)

However, once I accepted the situation as it IS (rather than living in the denial of what I wanted it to be) I was able to see the solution... Create something that will convince a production company to hire me.

Easy.

Well... NOT, lol. But do-able, at least!

(Actually, my solution was to become a production company and find access to production moneys, namely by finding a deal-maker who is INTO hooking production companies with money from people/businesses that regularly invest in film... But you get the point, right?)

But it's like... If I fell off a boat into shark-infested water and I spotted a shark swimming by, I wouldn't believe that I could WILL the shark to not eat me. I wouldn't believe that by NOT accepting the situation AS IT IS that I could affect the outcome.

In fact, I would know that my NOT accepting the reality of my situation I would, very likely, DIE.

The way out of that particular situation would be TO ACCEPT IT FOR WHAT IT IS.

Then... act accordingly. Don't splash around. If I have a cut, try to cover it or keep it out of the water. Keep as constant a watch on the movements of the shark as the water (and the shark's movements) will allow.

But, as another example... It once took me 6 years to accept that the woman I was certain I was in love with couldn't love be back in the same way. Because if I accepted it, it would become true.

However... Once I DID accept that truth, I was able re-evaluate my situation and start looking for other solutions to my problem. AND re-examining and better defining the problem itself. (Sometimes what we thing we want is actually a place-holder for what we REALLY want, only we haven't figured that out yet.)

Another thing that, I believe, trips people up about the basic truth "what IS is what is" is a misperception that what IS is what WILL ALWAYS BE.

Quantum physicists, some mystics and a few REALLY COOL sci-fi writers tell us that Time is an illusion of human perception... that events don't actually unfold in a linear manner, but actually co-exist simultaneously. But the human mind can only deal with Reality by filtering it through a linear perception that creates the illusion that we are borne, grown old and die.

Which, I think, leads us to thing that things click into place and run along a path from there. So like marriage: We fall in love, and once we are in love we remain in love for the rest of our lives.

And if we're lucky, that works out for us fine.

But experience -- not only my own, of course -- has shown me that at some point (probably many points) the NATURE of that love changes. Often when the first or second change occurs, the marriage ends. But for those dedicated to the ideal of marriage, that change simply causes a re-evaluation of the relationship, and the bond between the lovers usually actually GROWS from that point on.

Point is, I think it's our linear-perception nature that makes us assume that once something is a certain way, it will remain that way for the rest of our Reality.

But I think open, honest observers will recognize that things change. Nothing -- NOTHING -- remains the same. It just doesn't.

Even with inanimate objects, our perceptions of and feelings about an inanimate object changes according to our experiences. When I was 7 Scooby Doo cartoons were this great escape, a reality that I just realy enjoyed getting lost in. When I was 14 Scooby Doo cartoons were just stupid, a series of jokes that don't come close to making me laugh. At 35 Scooby Doo cartoons are the product of industry profesionals who were animating gags and telling jokes that would have made them laugh 30 or 50 years before when they were kids, a bunch of old guys reliving their childhoods. (I don't know how old the animators of the Scooby Doo series(es) were, but them being old farts out-of-touch with the generation they were animating for is the best explaination I can come up with -- other than blatant drug abuse.)

My point is that Scooby Doo didn't change. My perception of it did due to my experiences, as filtered through my linear observation aparatus.

But even so, even if time did flow in a direction, and a single sirection... Experience shows us over and over again that nothing remains the same. If we have something good, we may loose it.

Or at the very least, it will change in some way. Maybe into something bad!

Or...

Maybe into something better.

That's the thing we don't think about when we're fighting a particular situational truth. We think we have it all figured out: THIS is what I want. THIS... nothing more!

But let's say you've got a car, and you like it fine. It doesn't have a cd player and the AC hasn't really worked in a year or two, but you've got the car.

Then it dies.

The engine is busted and it'll cost more to replace it than what you owe on the financing. And besides, the mechanic tells you, even TRYING TO replace the engine is most likely a waste of time and money.

Well that's just the worst thing EVER, right? You shake your tiny fists at the heavens because how could Fate be so cruel and ruin your life in this way?!!

That very thing happened to me, and the car I'm currently driving is, like, 100% better -- in just about EVERY respect -- than the car that I so bemoaned the loss of.

My situation was that I had a decent car. That changed.

I had no car. That changed.

Now I have a really good car.

That, too, will change.

But -- for instance -- if Brian and Tommy and I succeed in our plan to get the financing to make a movie next year, my situation may change FOR THE BETTER. I mean, it happened once, right?

Change doesn't mean "for the worse." But I think that our mental programing tends to make us think of the situations we are in in very limited ways. "If this situation is good, and it changes, it will then be bad." When the Reality we live in is much more fascinating and creative than that. MUCH more so than WE are. Hell, we percieve Time in a linear fashion, for heaven's sake!


So then...

Once I was able to accept -- even embrace -- the fact of "what IS is what is" I was able to start looking around and seeing what options were available to me. See, before that I thought my options were "accept this" or "don't accept this". So my actions were impotent and fruitless, because I wasn't actually taking action to affect my situation.

But once I realized the truth, I was able to say "Okay, I can't affect whether or not this woman will love me, so what CAN I affect?"

Well, in that particular situation, I was able to look at what I got from love. Part of that was a good feeling about who I am. Another part was a sense of being able to enjoy life.

Turns out that I was able to give myself both of those things! I possessed self-esteem and I possessed fun all along... I had just gotten used to not having to provide them for myself. (But once I figured out that I possessed them, I was then able to share both of those things with others!!! I could help others feel good about themselves, and I was able to help others have fun! And here's a secret if you're a guy reading this: Women actually find that kinda sexy ;P)

Once I was able to accept that what IS is what is I was able to recognize that most of the time my own attitude toward a situation -- and it's solution -- often had A LOT to do with the outcome of that situation. Just aproaching things in a positive way allowed me to imagine outcomes that I could not have imagined back when I was stuck in that "accept it/don't accept it" headspace. I became able to get jiggy with solutions, get all creative with them.

That made for more interesting -- and enjoyable -- outcomes :)

It's like, we don't get pissed-off because the sun goes down. We accept that that happnes. That's just reality.

So we go out and do night-time things.

After all, there are some things that are actually more fun to do at night.

That's just how it IS ;P