Principle 4 Proportion – Week 4 – 2024

 April 18, 2024 

Principle 4. Proportion. Fourth Week. 

Things Are Well When They Move Together Not In Isolation.

Play the game of Explain It!

This Week:

Over the last three weeks we looked at the general structure of this month’s principle and tried to understand it in general terms. We also looked at how it applied in the past, as well as in the present. 

-This week we turn our attention to trying to apply the Principle of Proportion to what we believe (i.e. imagine) the future holds in store. 

- Consider this principle in terms of what you think your future holds.

-Play the game of Explain It!

Here’s some ideas to consider this week. We can discuss our questions, insights, and discoveries in our next meeting.

Personal Reflections:

Now For Something Completely Different

My approach to the principle this week is a bit different than usual. If you haven’t done it try it out (step by step). If you have done it before in the context of these meetings, you may find it worthwhile (and maybe surprising) to do it again now a year or two later. 

I can’t emphasize enough that in my experience this procedure, like so many others, benefits from writing down your thoughts. 

Over the last weeks we have discussed how this principle seems fundamentally connected to having clear priorities. Trying to sort those out helps us recognize if some activity, goal, or aspiration is being ignored, or on the contrary being given too much time and energy. 

The first thing I do in this exercise is to sit down and close my eyes, I then ask myself, as one does in the Ceremony of the Service, “what it is that I really need?”, “what is it that I most want?”. I try not to discard anything that comes to mind. Instead, I make notes about those things that seem most “charged”, that seem to move me the most. 

I make an effort not to be judgmental — as if I am listening with affection and detachment to a very close friend who is telling me about their secret dreams. I tell myself things I might be ashamed to say out loud. I imagine things I’d never really do, or in “real-life” even consider doing. 

The point is it doesn’t matter if you say I want to win the lottery, or to tell my boss to screw off, or have a torrid affair, or move to a cute little home with a lovely picket fence, or whatever. You have to make a big effort to be honest, non-judgmental, and to suspend self-censorship. You don’t ever have to tell anyone else what you write down. This is for you. 

Having made my list, review it a few times. I then try to think about each point a little more deeply. Perhaps I realize that it’s not necessarily that I really want to tell my boss to screw off. It may be that is just a kind of shorthand. Perhaps it’s an image that for example compensates in some way for the sensation of being stuck in a situation I don’t like. 

Maybe what I’d like much more than scolding someone is a more fulfilling way to make a living, or perhaps simply a job that allowed me to actually make ends meet (or even do a little more than just get by). In the same way, perhaps you conclude that “winning the lottery” is simply a sort of metaphor for having more control over your own life. Or maybe what you’d really like is to feel that there is still a future wide-open with possibilities, instead of the vague feeling of fear you have about the future. 

It is certainly worth taking note of those thoughts (fantasies, reveries, daydreams) that take you beyond the initial image, and point to the underlying climate the image is trying to compensate. But remember the central point of the exercise is to clarify what it is you hope for.

This of course could raise the question of how to turn wishes into projects.

Coming up:

Next week: A look at how we’ve fared over the last month.

Remember:

    Our spirituality is one that takes shape in the midst of daily life, and whose validity is explored amid the activities of our common life. 

Worth Repeating:

    None of these principles exists by itself. Many questions and difficulties about applying a principle become clearer when the other eleven principles inform your considerations.

Homework for this week:

- Consider this principle in terms of what you think your future holds.

-Play the game of Explain It!

If you want to know more about this week’s game:

The rules for this week’s game are simple, and summed up in the name of the game, Explain.

Here are two possible approaches (there could be many others). Like with the game of Ask! we need to engage another player (or players). If I can manage to talk to someone that’s great but if I can’t, whether because of my personal circumstance, shyness, etc. I can write down my thoughts in a brief email — whether I send it or not is another matter. The point is to put my thoughts, and intuitions into a form that is suitable for sharing.

Of course, just as with other games, I might find myself with no one to play with. For example, in this case, no one whom I can either ask their opinion, or tell mine. Such a situation might well be an opportunity to reflect on what that absence implies, and perhaps even take measures in enrich my social environment.

Another thing this game has in common with the game of Ask About It! is that it’s a game! In this game our interest is on engaging and communicating. Convincing, preening, recruiting, etc. are outside of the goals of the game. Rather, you are simply sharing your interpretation of something you find interesting.

Note:

As is so often the case, this week’s illustration is thanks to Rafael Edwards.

These notes have been posted on Facebook and sent to our email list, and, on my website www.dzuckerbrot.com 

More coming up next time…