“Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.” Sigmund Freud
Gurdjieff often stated that his mission was to mercilessly destroy the illusions we have about ourselves and the world. He is getting a lot of help these days from three major disruptions on the planet: climate change, the war in Ukraine , and the COVID pandemic – all proving the danger of illusions dashed to pieces.
I woke up this morning feeling distraught because it seemed like even my illusions of possibility were being shattered. After meditating and exercising, I came to realize that illusions and possibilities are very different. A possibility is boundless imagination grounded in reality. An illusion is boundless hallucination entangled in myth. My creeping hopelessness resulted in the conclusion that it was an illusion to even hold on to possibility given the dire state of the planet. I got a little taste of the depression, despair, and anxiety our kids are feeling today. No wonder mental health issues and adolescent suicides are increasing dramatically and tragically.
That conclusion hit me hard. I founded Possibilities, Inc. in 1982. I’m a 7 on the Enneagram – a Possibilist. I created a whole series of courses on Lifestyle Possibilities. My first e-mail address on AOL was mrpossible. You can imagine how devastated I felt to entertain the belief that even possibilities were illusions.
I started thinking about what got me on this path in the first place. I remembered reading Victor Frankl’s book, In Search of Meaning, in which he shared his experience as a holocaust survivor in concentration camps. He said he survived by finding possibilities against the backdrop of reality. I figured if he could hang onto possibilities in those conditions, none of us should ever fail to keep looking in spite of the darkness we may be experiencing.
We see illusions all around us. The West held onto the illusion that Putin would peacefully accept the expansion of NATO. Putin gave into the illusion that the people of Ukraine would welcome him as a liberator, and he would seize Kiev in 3 days. Many people still hang onto the illusion that climate change is not real and that we can continue polluting the environment without paying any price. A few created the illusion that COVID would miraculously disappear when warmer weather arrived. Two years, 500 million cases, and 15 million deaths later, it’s still here. The problem is that all of these illusions came into play simultaneously. Oh, I could go on and on about illusions, but I will spare you my venting and invite you to develop your own list. You can determine for yourself what’s an entangled hallucination vs. a grounded possibility.
The questions are: 1) how can we continue to pursue possibilities when the realities of the world are so bleak? 2) how can we entertain boundless possibilities and still stay grounded in reality. 3) how can we destroy illusions without killing hope? And 4) how do we fight against the untethered hallucinations that keep people from seeking or seeing the truth?
After crawling out of my funk, I decided to simply focus on what I could change. Sound familiar Reinhold Niebuhr? In case you didn’t know, Niebuhr wrote the serenity prayer in 1932. It is now a critical foundation of AA and other helping methodologies:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
As I have written in several previous posts, my work with the Grand Traverse Land Conservancy has given me great joy over the past several years. It’s an organization that has had the courage to change the things they can. Just recently, I conducted culture audits with both the Conservancy staff and board. The results were beyond what I had ever seen before in spite of a pandemic that forced everyone into isolation. In order to present the results in a way that represented not only the accomplishments they had achieved in their community and in their culture, but also encouraged them to aspire to what still may be possible, I decided to abandon the traditional approach of simply sharing the numbers and write a poem instead. Here it is:
The Conservancy Culture Audit Results
In a world divided by diverging values, you unite by converging beliefs
In a news cycle full of doom, you offer hope
Under the shadow of gloom, you provide joy
In a society driven by egos, you preserve ecos
In a pandemically isolated world, you connect people to Nature
Against the tide of exclusivity, you build paths of inclusivity
In a society plagued by selfishness, you foster selflessness
As institutional trust diminishes, you model trustworthiness
In a culture of individual competitiveness, you promote community collaboration
In a get and take economy fueling inequality, you give and grow equality
On a rapidly deteriorating planet, you protect vital resources
In an increasingly ugly environment, you create beautiful options
In a world darkened by evil, you radiate Light
Are you perfect? No.
Do you have opportunities to improve? Yes.
Could there be a better place to serve? I don’t think so.
You will notice that the first part of each stanza cites the reality. The second part represents the possibility. There are no illusions in the poem. Indeed, our world can be justly described as divergent, full of doom, shadowed by gloom, driven by egos, isolated by disease, poisoned by exclusivity, undermined by competition, plagued by selfishness, diminished by distrust, divided by inequalities, and darkened by evil. AND, the possibilities for hope, joy, connection, inclusivity, selflessness, trustworthiness, community collaboration, equality, preservation, creation, and Light still exist. This example of what a small agency in a small town can accomplish by working together toward a meaningful mission is what keeps me believing that change may be more than an illusion, but a real possibility.
On an individual level, I think we could all benefit by focusing more on our spiritual possibilities than our physical and intellectual illusions. Just recently, it occurred to me that it is possible to develop our spiritual competencies and that they, in fact, may be an antidote to the challenges we are facing. Currently, I’m working on these:
- Breathing
- Welcoming
- Cleansing
- Flowing
- Spiraling
- Thanking
- Affirming
- Smiling on
- Aspiring
- Strengthening
- Giving
- Chanting
- Centering
- Sensing
- Grounding
- Emptying
- Being Present
- Harmonizing
- Honoring
- Channeling
All of these competencies probably mean different things to each of us. I could riff on each one in a way that would really test your tolerance. So, I will leave it to you to explore the possibilities that may enlighten us, just as I left it for you to identify the illusions that darken us.
For me, the list is more than a collection. Instead, it represents a set of possibilities whose power rests in the interrelationships of all of them. It’s the harmony of all of them working in concert that brings healing. I’m hoping that we can continue to destroy our illusions and still hang on to our possibilities. I’m hoping that we will stay grounded in reality and still boundlessly imagine a better world. May it be so.
Also published on Medium.
