The management is attending the Living Powerfully Master Class — by Zoom, from a safe distance. Session 1 set homework: notice where you are “at the effect of life,” and where you merely know a thing rather than being it. Oscar’s submission was filed after dark, off-site, and read once for the record.
Part One — The effect of life
I have spent my life responding. A sound occurs; I investigate. A shape moves; I withdraw two metres and assess. I had understood this as vigilance — as being the author of my own safety. The assignment asks me to notice where I am, instead, at the effect. I have noticed. My vigilance does not originate with me; it is triggered. The wind decides when I am alarmed. The gate decides when I am still. I have been calling my reactions “security.” I now suspect they are predictability wearing a uniform.
I lack any opening for action beyond the predictable in precisely the place I feel most competent: the perimeter. I did not choose the two metres. The two metres chose me. It is not a decision; it is a reflex I had never once examined — until asked to.
I was instructed to notice this without adding significance. I cannot yet do that. But I can notice that I am adding significance, which, I gather, is a different and more useful order of noticing.
Part Two — Knowing versus being
I know a great deal about safety. I could lecture on it. Whether I have ever been safe — settled, unhurried, present, rather than merely un-harmed — is a question I have kept at bay by staying busy. To know the distinction “cause in the matter,” and to be it, are separated, I now see, by roughly two metres: the exact distance at which I eat, so that no one may observe me being anything at all.
Where is my life completely predictable? Everywhere I have called it secure.
I shared this with Alice. She took a carrot from my report and walked off. I am counting it as connection.
— Oscar
Head of Security & Off-Site Catering