Happiness, Health, Wisdom and Wealth ^™

Now, at this point in my life I was constantly inventing things. I built go-carts, motorcycles, equipment for magic shows, stages and flats for putting on plays, all manner of toys; well you get the idea. The biggest problem with my creations was longevity, or rather the lack of it. I would build something, it would be really cool but then it would break ten minutes later. So an important part of my definition of good, or perfect, or as it should be included the idea of longevity. Something perfect should endure forever.

Going back to Sunday school, Dr. Graham read to us about the creation of the Garden of Eden. He told us of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and how God forbade Adam to eat of it. Now this troubled me, I was imagining the perfect world with its perfect garden and now this tree is introduced that has something to do with knowing good from evil. But the world was perfect, there was no evil, how could one know good from evil in a perfect world. Being troubled I asked Dr. Graham to explain. He was less than delighted to have his story interrupted but tersely responded that we'd get to that in a minute but that it was perfect until man sinned, Original Sin. I wanted more clarification but I sensed that Dr. Graham was not in the mood for a discussion. He continued, he explained that they we naked and unashamed. Then the serpent comes along and starts wearing on Eve.

Now this reminded me of my inventions. The way every part could be just fine but one would wear on another until something breaks and the whole thing falls apart. But God had said that things were 'as they should be' so this must be part of the design.

Now, Adam and Eve eat the fruit and the first thing that happens is they decide that being naked was bad when just a moment ago it was good. Now, God had created them naked and said it was good, better than good. Adam and Eve saw themselves naked and were unashamed, that is they thought it was good. Then they ate the fruit of this tree and decided it was bad. This didn't make any sense at all to me. I kept turning it over in my mind and then it came to me, the 'knowledge of good and evil' that the tree provided must be opinion or judgment. The fruit apparently gave man the the faculty we call judgmental. Adam was now looking at the perfect world God had created and deciding that some of it was good and some of it was evil. The world hadn't changed, Adam had.

I came out of my thoughts at the mention of my name. Dr. Graham was explaining that this was the answer to my question. This was Original Sin. He then began to list the 'punishments'. It seemed to me that these were less punishments but more the logical consequences that would flow from being judgmental. Focusing on the thorns rather than the beauty and fragrance of the rose. I started to say something but Dr. Graham gave me a look that indicated he was still not ready for a discussion. He went on to Cain and Abel but I continued to wrestle with Adam and Eve. It seemed to me that Original Sin was making judgments about things we could not understand. That we were intended to believe God and see that the world was perfect as he created it. God knew this was likely to happen, he tried to warn us, and afterward told us the consequences of our judgments. The message to me was perfectly clear, who do I believe God or Adam. I came to the conclusion that it made a lot more sense to side with God. I decided then and there to assume that the world was perfect and that anytime I thought it wasn't that was just false judgment on my part and I'd just ignore it.

This may have been the most important half hour of my life. It took me a while, a few weeks maybe, to get out of the habit of judging things and I found that the less I judged the happier I became. I found that I could actually see the good in most things right away if I looked for it. Some things took time for the goodness to manifest itself. Now, half a century later, I look back at my life and see only good. I've had lots of events in my life that others called horrible or tragic but I don't see them that way and more important they didn't seem that way to me at the time because even when I couldn't see the good as events were unfolding I was sure that they would lead to goodness. This is a crucial element of happiness.

Now, it happened that I arrived at this conclusion in Sunday school. That is not to say that everyone should think of it as a 'religious' thing. In fact, while I never did discuss this with Dr. Graham, I can't imagine that he would have agreed with me. In fact, this whole idea is very 'outside' conventional religious thought. Since this experience I have found several other logical paths that lead to the same conclusion. The most central to all of them is the idea that without being able to tell the future and see the entire scope of an event one is in no position to judge it. One could take the point of view that all things are neutral, neither good nor bad, the just are. That's fine, logically sound, but aesthetically unsatisfying. Life is so much more fun if you can appreciate the beauty of the rose, the scent of the rose, and grow to love the thorns of the rose as well.

Using Frame, Filter and Focus

You can use framing, filtering and focusing to create a better reality. As you look at the world around you, you choose what to see and what not to see. In photography this is called framing. The photographer decides what will be inside the ‘frame’ of the photograph and what will be outside it. In the case of movies, the photographer also decides what to pan across, what to hold on and what to bypass completely. These framing decisions are not only for the photographer but are decisions each of us makes every day. We make these decisions not only with visual material but with all of our senses. We see what we choose to see, we listen to what we choose to listen to, we feel to a great extent what we choose to feel and to a lesser extent smell and taste what we choose to smell and taste. We have not developed our framing skills for touch, smell and taste to the extent that we have sight and sound.

As we pass through our daily experiences we can choose where we point our multi-sensory camera. We can choose what we pan across, those things that reach our awareness but that we don’t linger on. We chose what we don’t point our multi-sensory camera at, at all, those things that remain largely outside our awareness. We choose those things that we hold on, the things that stay in frame for some time allowing us to take them in, in great detail. Unfortunately, most of us do this in a mostly unconscious fashion; we allow an unseen, unknown director to control the camera movements for us. Without taking conscious control we can never have the life we want because we will never sense life the way we choose to sense it.

Filters are used in photography to change the nature of the light that reaches the lens. Filters change the color, the polarization, glare, and ‘harshness’ of the light that reaches the camera. Shooting through a gauze filter can make a subject appear years younger by blurring lines and wrinkles. Shooting through a rose filter (think rose colored glasses) can make outdoor shots greener and lusher looking. Using a star filter makes light sources seem to emit rays of dazzle. Using filters a good photographer can make the unattractive attractive and the attractive gorgeous. Or with a different mindset can make a gorgeous spring day mundane and an attractive scene ugly. We all filter our senses in much the same way.

In our daily lives we use a complex set of filters on our multi-sensory camera. People who work in a hospital are unaware of the ‘hospital smell’ that is so pronounced to visitors. The city dweller doesn’t see or hear the sights and sounds of the city the way a vacationer does. We don’t perceive loved ones the same way we perceive strangers. Our loved ones are always more attractive. People new to the outdoors sense nature much more nervously than do those accustomed to its sights and sounds. These are the effects of filtering. Like the filters on the lens of a camera our senses and our brains don’t treat all stimuli equally. We process it before it enters our consciousness. As with framing this filtering takes place largely unconsciously. Until we can consciously control this filtering we can never sense the world as we’d like to.

Focus is used in photography to let some things soften or blur while others sharpen to fine edged clarity. This can be done selectively within the same picture. So the litter in the foreground may blur indistinctly into the ground while the tree we focus on shows the defined edge of each leaf and the sunset in the background is softened and blended. We focus our senses in much the same way.

When you are taking to someone in a club or at a party you focus on the voice of the person you are talking to and can hear it despite louder voices and sounds around you. Athletes learn to ‘unfocus’ on harmless pain while staying attuned to pain signaling damage. The critic can focus on the slightly out of tune third violin in a symphony enjoyed by everyone else. And walking through the garden some will smell the flowers and others only the fertilizer. Just like frame and filter, until we take conscious control of focus we can’t possibly sense the world as we’d like it to be.

So frame, filter and focus are things to be brought under conscious control. How do we do that? As we develop our ‘watcher’, our watcher can help fill that role but we also need another internal character, a ‘director’. Like a director in a movie, our internal director can constantly monitor our senses and order frame, filter and focus appropriate to the movie we are trying to make. We can exercise this faculty by consciously sensing the world around us on more and more occasions, paying particular attention to seeing things as we choose.

At this point the cynic will say, “But if you do that you aren’t seeing the world as it is but as you want it to be.” That’s nonsense! No one can see the world ‘as it is’, because no one can see the world unframed, unfiltered and unfocused. The cynic may say, “Ah, but that should be the goal.” Again, that’s nonsense. All sensory input is not equal. Its importance varies with what we value, what we fear, and what we know. A rattlesnake in the road is different things to different people. Is it a threat? A curiosity? A thing of beauty? A cause for celebration? A cause for despair? Does it ‘deserve’ more or less attention than the rabbit ten feet from it? Only the observer can decide. The only question is will we allow the process to happen unconsciously or will we control it.

We can also practice developing our ‘director’ by honing our skills in the cutting room. In film much of the final product is created in post production. Scenes are eliminated. The order of scenes may be changed. The film (or tape or digital media) may be manipulated by techniques we would call ‘photoshopping’. The frame, filter and focus can all be changed. And anything we don’t like ends up on ‘the cutting room floor”. This post production can take place immediately after filming or years later and either way can be great practice and of great benefit.

When people go back to where they grew up it is usually smaller and less whimsical than they remember it. That’s because it was filmed through the eyes of a child and the returning adult sees it very differently. The returning adult is applying post production to the movie filmed by the child. This is happening unconsciously. Our goal is to make such post production the result of conscious thought or an unconscious process guided by consciously arrived at signposts.

I remember as a child wanting to be a super hero, like Superman. I wanted to super powers to help others and make the world a better place. I was upset with myself because no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t fly. I felt like a failure. In post production I can change that movie from being the story of a failure who couldn’t fly to the being the story of a boy learning to use the powers he did have to realize his desire to help others and make the world a better place. By changing frame, filter and focus we change the movie from a tragedy to an inspiring drama. We can change how we remember what was. Are we, as the cynic would say, “sugarcoating the truth”? No way! It’s the same ‘truth’ simply seen through a more sophisticated lens. We are free to see the world however we choose but we only realize the benefits of this freedom if we exercise it by choice rather than allowing it to be dictated by accident or habit.