The First Trick
Old Dog says,
“Experience is experience. Whatever, we think or say about the experience is a story. “
“There is truth to your story, but your story is never all of truth. Your story is never the only truth. Your story isn’t the only story. And your story is never, ever the experience.”
This trick and concept is a foundation to many things. It offers us the path to the realization of choice. It is an opportunity and path to the fulfillment of knowing that you are truly the "author" of your life. How we perceive our experiences and how we portray ourselves creates the reality of our relationships with self and others. By accepting this as a belief and a daily practice, we open ourselves to "authentic authorship".
A Man was asked by a dear friend once in regards to a matter of romantic confusion, "Are you willing to take 100% responsibility for your experience of this?" The Man quickly protested, "It is not all my fault !" The friend said with emphasis, "No, are willing to take 100% responsibility for YOUR experience of this situation."
People will interfere and challenge your authorship and creating reality. Their world and story is based what they consider to be facts, rules and their construct of reality. For many, the only way that they can feel right is to prove others wrong.
This ability to fully own what one thinks as one’s own story and says is why this trick is a foundation of thinking differently.
It is Old Dog’s sincere belief that we are all making things up all the time. This idea seems to disturb many people. It may be an indication of how some are more comfortable with rigid definitions of what we call fiction and non-fiction or a fact and belief. What Old Dog offers here are thoughts which affirms and emphasizes that each of has a specific perspective/point of view.
The main difference in life is that some of us are willing to admit that we are making things up and others are not. It becomes more of an issue of whether one is willing to accept a level of responsibility for one’s life in more authentic and vital ways.
If, you don’t realize or admit you are making things up then Old Dog says that you are either fooling yourself (which can be fun) or you are lying.
Do not be fooled by yourself or others that you can get away from your responsibility in authorship by declaring your story to be “fact or scripture”.
If, you do this is usually a sign that you are sliding out of the “driver’s seat” of your life and letting others write your story or just being unwilling to take responsibility.
Old Dog says, “Be careful in leaving the “driver’s seat”, you might often, just find yourself to be the only one in the car.
Old Dog also says, "Everyone is crazy...Just some of us are more entertaining than others." "And be very careful of those who do not know or admit they are crazy !”
Consensus Reality
This doesn't mean that there are not general truths or concepts that we believe collectively. Or for that matter that there are not aspects of reality which are outside our thinking and greater than ourselves. This belief that the fabric of reality is a construct of our perception is organically an affirmation of the process of how our individual experiences are created and recorded. Consensus offers the illusion that we assume that others see the world as we do. Allowing for the variety of the unique stories of Life can allow you to hone your own “authentic authorship”.