Bobo: Yes. You have a set of beliefs about yourself, about the world that no one else holds.
Tutu: But there are other people who believe like I do.
Bobo: Not exactly like you do. Each person has their own set of beliefs unique to them. And there are more of the 6.8 billion people on earth today who do NOT believe like you do than who do.
Tutu: But my beliefs are the right beliefs. My beliefs are true.
Bobo: (Laughing) Every one of the 6.8 billion earthlings says that. Your beliefs are true for you. And you keep making them true.
Tutu: No. They ARE true. How do you mean I keep making them true?
Bobo: You see the unfoldings of each moment through the filter of your beliefs. You believe in time, don't you?
Tutu: Of course. Everyone believes in time. Time is real!
Bobo: Just because you believe in it does not make it real. Not everyone believes in time. Some hold it only as a hypothesis, an interesting concept that is one way of creating the world around us.
Tutu: But there is time! There is a past and a future!
Bobo: Show them to me.
Tutu: Look. Here is your baby book. Here is a picture of you at age three.
Bobo: That is not the past. That picture is here now. The past is in your mind, just one of the creations of your belief system. The only reality is the present, the eternal now. We create a story of time and space (and incidentally there can be no time without space, nor space without time, but that's another story). The story of time and space has value, especially in the mathematical and in the marketing worlds, but it is just a story.
Tutu: You make my head hurt.
Bobo: That is your belief system feeling pressure. Your inclination right now, the response that most humans have when asked to look outside their belief system and especially when asked to consider that their belief system is hypnotic, bounded (closed), and arbitrary, is to get away from thinking about this. You file me away as an eccentric, misguided but well-meaning, and go immediately to the life you have constructed around your belief system for reassurance.
Tutu: I will think about this later.
Bobo: No. You won't. But that is okay. That is the way humans are.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
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Great last line!
ReplyDeleteI am Bobo and Tutu...or Tutu becoming Bobo. Or Tutu stuck in Tutu's belief system beginning to see the possibilities Bobo is talking about...hmmm. Thanks for making this simple (?) and clear, Goerge. L&B, Eve
ReplyDeleteRob, always good to hear from you. Hope you are doing well.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, Eve. I have a feeling Bobo and Tutu will have further conversations on this blog.
ReplyDelete