Bringing TTW to Fruition

(For a little background on what I mean by fruition, please see my Free Refills from Tuesday and Wednesday.)

Jerry and I started publishing pieces for the Training Tiger Woods project on the autumn equinox of 2015. (Energetically, probably more a Planting-a-Seed action than a Harvesting action, but an auspicious day for beginning nonetheless.) We've now published seven seasons of work here.

The project started as a place to explore using energy techniques to speed learning of and to more completely achieve our potentials within the realm of sports. Then, with the election and the massive turmoil that followed, we felt called to write about how to bring those same energy techniques to bear to adapt to and survive and perhaps ultimately begin to change the toxic energy that's permeating our society.

The pieces I wrote for Tuesday and Wednesday call for a different relationship with our work. It has always been our goal to turn the work we were doing into books, and now is the time to turn our attention fully to that goal. Blogging the exploring and experimenting we've done so far has been a useful practice, and that exploring and experimenting will doubtless continue, but the act of preparing and readying a piece for publication once a week is now distracting from steady work that writing a book requires, where it's best to write without immediate concern for putting something out there. So in order to best bring these works to fruition, we're going to stop publishing here on any kind of a regular schedule. When something comes up in the writing that requests that we just get it out there, or when something interesting happens in our continued explorations, we'll publish here. So please check back from time to time.

In the meantime, thank for you reading, and we hope you'll be interested in our work as it comes to Fruition.

Trajectory

Every week the chaos in our society seems to deepen. That is our trajectory now, and it will continue to be our trajectory until enough people stop irrationally seeking magic from our erstwhile leaders--"I'll bring back all the jobs!"--stop enabling chaos through their own destructive anger, and start seeking balance within themselves. The problem is not those people. The problem is not out there. We are the problem. Our lack of balance is what's creating this situation. It is only in seeking balance that the problem can be solved.

TTW in a Nutshell (Part 2)

Since the election in November, we've turned our attention to how to live (and possibly even thrive?) in a society that's deeply out of balance. Last week, I asserted that most people in our society are unhappy most of the time. Let me assert today that a society made up of mostly unhappy people is far more likely to seek out conflict rather than cooperation than one comprised of people who are in balance.

Consider, for example, President Trump's decision last week to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement. A recent national poll found that seven out of ten Americans support remaining in the agreement, and that a majority of self-identified Democrats, Republicans and independents all want to stay in the accord.

Trump's decision to pull the country out of the accord, contrary to what a majority of Americans want, reflects my essential point that as a people out of balance, we are prone to or even seek out conflict. Trump, as someone who thrives in chaos, seeks (one hopes unconsciously) to sow seeds of chaos.

So what do we do about it? How do we alter that dynamic? If people out of balance are far more likely to seek conflict rather than cooperation, and if our society is succumbing to the impact of constant conflict, indeed, appears to be descending into chaos (and would you dare to claim otherwise?), then the single most radical and effective thing we can do as individuals is to short-circuit that dynamic by seeking balance within ourselves.

TTW in a Nutshell

It is our observation that most people (in America, at least--we can't speak intelligently about the rest of the world) are unhappy most of the time.

It is our further observation that it just doesn't have to be this way. Life doesn't have to be this hard.

Now, we're making no claims that these observations are in any way unique to us. The Buddha said the same things 2,500 years ago.

If the Buddha (and Jesus, and Muhammad, and whatever other enlightened sages you'd like to point to) couldn't teach people that they don't need to suffer, why are we so arrogant to think we have anything useful to add?

In part, it's that every voice that offers a path to any level of awakening is valuable--maybe one of those voices will speak to you. (I'd practiced both Zen and Vipassana meditation prior to meeting Jerry, but it was the simple practice of centering that unlocked the door for me.)

It's also that modern technology can serve to amplify a voice in a way that has never been possible before. (Unfortunately, as we've seen through such phenomena as online bullying and fake news, this cuts both ways.)

But more than anything, it's that we feel we've been called to help, and believe we can help.