Pushback

Resistance Movement nr.1

Most days I wear working pants. Blue ones. Lots of pockets. Padded knees. After climbing ladders and moving heavy stuff around, being on my knees is a good third. In building, nothing is ever at a convenient height or in the right spot. Things do not have the right size. What must be waterproof leaks. What should be running gets blocked. If you want the damn thing to stick it defies your wishes. If the bugger needs to come undone it resists with all its might. 

Don’t judge the cook by his lover…. My interpretation of The Magus I True wizards may not look the part.

Unlikely wizards

An experienced ‘maker’ has learned to overcome resistance. They can seem like wizards. While you spend hours on a bolt, they loosen it in minutes. A job that took you two months, they do in half a day with twice the quality. Observing this kind of skilled worker do their thing is fascinating. I think there’s metaphysics involved. 

I am not referring to the repetitive skill of someone who did the exact same thing a thousand times before. Experience is admirable and lots to learn there, but I mean the broader type that comes across a complex problem or a new situation that challenges everyone else to bits. Reality putting up some real resistance and daring anyone to get around that. This is about the one that shows up and gets to work without a word. That type. 

I have some tricks up my sleeve in making things work for me. I have come a long way in the persuasion of the physical, but I don’t consider myself in that rare league of material magicians. I came across a few. In very different realms. A sound technician, a steel worker, a festival boss, a cook, a musician. They were never just that. In fact what they did or became famous for, did not at all define them. They could have done, and often did, something totally different and shine. A shining way too often unnoticed until you pay close attention. Only detected when you are no longer mesmerized by the credit-takers. Because the real mechanics don’t do the Ted talks¹. 

The ones that make it work.

The word mechanic has a masculine reputation. But this servicing may be more feminine than you like. The shining are not on the magazine covers.

I started noticing what they had in common. I don’t mean those lists of seven traits of successful people, like getting up at five as the recipe for fame. This is much more difficult to describe. It took me years to put my finger on those shared ways. Proper field work is needed to get the subtleties of this kind of magic. It is hardly ever talked about, there seem to be no books on this. It is an educational void. So strange. Because what these wizzards seem to get right is what most of us get wrong. 

Working with, deep attending, trust, sensitivity, a good amount of stubbornness and an intimate rootedness in the material world. An earthy soul with big ears and good hands. A body used. All three meant in the wider sense of the metaphoric big ears. Of course I do not point at a literal wide eyed perspective. Very worrisome to even have to say that ‘out loud’. Understanding the actual mechanics of our reality cannot be done from the head. Matter is too weird to wield from within the analytic room. And while plain old knowledge and experience play a role that’s not what brings this into being. There’s something in the approach, in the way they go about getting things done. 

Intensity

For one, they are deeply involved and direct their full attention to the thing at hand. Not narrow focus but a wide beam involving the full body. There is a slow approach. Not going straight for the problem area or the goal but mapping the territory first hand. That’s important: first hand knowledge. Many do come with a detailed ‘map of the world’ that is not store bought. A work in progress. It is unfinished on purpose.

Check, measure, look and look again, listen, touch, feel, ask questions. To self, to the present, to the thing. And not so much the formulation of these questions, much more it is a questioning attitude. Stand back, get a feel for the movements, proportions, relations, the energy flow, the functions. Big stuff first. See dangers. What will I need if, what am I sure of (and question that too), where is the uncertainty? Then move in closer, get inside the thing. Now a sphere of deep concentration forms. Don’t talk unless it adds something. Don’t listen to noise. Ignore the suggestions of others or shut them up. Get into the place without words. Thinking, becoming, interacting.

Some can joke, and talk, and entertain but it serves as part of the defensive shield they erect. Nothing gets in that is not part of the process. Not discarded, just placed on hold, made peripheral. A dive underneath the surface, under the hood of the external. If the moving starts they have picked up the scent of what they set out to find. The way in. Not for the kill, for the merge. Now the friction has become the core part of the violin. The scratchy sound is the music.

This whole setup is not for single-layer challenges and they know this; it's expected to take several rounds, deeper levels. That’s what they turn up for. That’s what makes them come alive. 

Did you notice the above is not specific? It can be about many things. A car that won’t run, preparing a meal (or whatever) with unexpected ingredients or broken appliances, a patient, a complex recording session, a computer programme or flat pack furniture, a fight, parenting.

Among angels

There is an arrogant humbleness involved, an almost angelic quality. This übermensch is a quiet servant. Halfway between opaque and transparent. A translucent reality is lived by these people. They know. 

They know what? Yes, a fact or two participates, but that’s not it. And it’s not like they know ‘the answer’ or even are able to define ‘the problem’. Not because they have a ton of experience. They often do but that only affirms the more primary knowing which opened them up to become experienced in the first place. 

Closing the gap

I think they know how to close the gap. The gap you and I feel between us and the world. Maybe by accident, or as a natural talent, or through an early role-model they figured out there is no gap. That the block, the obstacle, the not functioning, the missing part, the out of reach is nothing more than an illusion conjured up by the head, a habit. They know, found access to this strange little secret that includes repulsion as well as attraction, that discovers friction is smoothness in a different jacket. They know themselves, have the self-knowledge that includes the wingspan, the reach of their arms, their senses. The expandable bandwidth at their fingertips, in front of their step. The energy that arrives ahead of them. They know the easy to reach is as far away as the next galaxy if they fail to recognise themselves in what is out there.

They know the truth can’t be transparent. Transparency is rendering the thing itself invisible. It just looks like you could walk out of the bulletproof cage. Transparency is a lie and only leads the eye to the next opaque bit². It simply adds another layer to the fake solidity. None of the two gets us back to the nakedness of the translucent reality. 

Back to the friction. 

The best thing about this universe is that it pushes back

This friction includes all of the struggle, all of the suffering embedded in each and every thing. Resistance is not futile at all³. It is the effing essence of the place. You and I are here to push back. Not in general, but very specific, very personal, very local. Tiny adjustments within reach. You and I are not here to be discovered. Not here to be seen or heard, or read, or recognised. You break and enter the solid opaque, you make visible and remove the transparent. You discover and do the slight adjustment that makes all the difference. Be translucent. That’s the task. How’s that for pushback? 

1. The credit takers. This is a sticky one. Coming up with the ideas, finding new ways of doing stuff, the actual exploring is done outside of the limelight. If we were able to trace back the sparkers there will be hardly any well-known names on that list. Sometimes history corrects the stolen credits posthumously. But more often than not the humble task of providing, of laying the foundations of the new, goes unrecognised. Simply because the truly new cannot yet be recognised. The reward does not lie in fame, but in adding to the eternal fabric. That is fulfilment. And while a Pulitzer rewards you with a more comfortable life it also is an almost dead sure end to the freedom of creation. Unplugging you from the source of renewal.

2. A glass mirror is a perfect example of this layered opaqueness. Emphasising the transparent bit leads your attention away from the reflective armour coming behind that hides what cannot stand the light. Keep an eye on the word transparent. Anyone using it tries to hide something. The you in them is replaced by the mirrored reflection of the literal you, the perfect hideout. You are forced to identify yourself by someone/something nameless.

3. I know this is the complete opposite of last weeks post. Get used to it, it never is just one or the other.