While this seems to be true for most of us in that we learn by doing and do have to experience our own reality, my father also has a saying which goes like this:

“The stupid man doesn’t learn from his own experience.

The smart man learns from his experience. 

The geniuses learns from the experience of others.”

Yet what of the times when we see someone poor gasoline on themselves and set themselves on fire? 

Is the person who emulates this act of immolation a genius who has learned from another? 

Alternatively, those of us who avoid bathing in gasoline while playing with pyrotechnical devices,  are we geniuses simply because we have learned without experiencing directly?

And, what about when someone does something, and we see them get burned.  Or we do something and get burned.  And, we simply give up.  We do not try another way. 

Was Thomas Edison just stupid not to learn from his failures that it was impossible to make an electric light bulb?

Then again there is the body of research telling us that thinking is like doing.  That the mind cannot distinguish between having a thought about doing a thing and doing the thing itself.  Both are equally real.

Also, while book learning may or may not be as effective as doing, isn’t book learning worth something?  Book learning is merely mental exercise were we experience in our minds, things we learn from others who have written.  Even though we haven’t done it directly, it’s effective for something, isn’t it?

So, can we by thinking about a thing, experience the thing by proxy and thereby learn its lessons indirectly? 

Must we experience it directly?

Is Holt’s assertion a tautology?

Maybe all of these modalities are true, at least some of the time to some extent. 

I can and have sited several examples where each have been true and powerful. 

Maybe we need to take a broader view of what is the truth of how we learn through direct, mental and indirect experience.

Or, maybe one of these is more true than others?

What do you feel is true, truer, truest?

Something else perhaps?

Yours in truth,

Yucel

Have you ever sat down, captivated by drama, unfolding in front of you, perhaps on a silver screen, or on a television or in you dining room while listening to the goings on in the life of a friend, or in your own life?   Well I have.

During these unfoldings, have you ever sat at the edge of your seat, not able to leave the drama, for fear of missing something, cutting off the flow of the speaker, or just rapt, while doing a little dance cause you gotta pee;  and, hold the pee to not miss a drop of the story?  Well I have.

I have engaged in many forms of drama.  For example, I used to be a TV-a-holic, not just drama, though a good drama was always a treat:   “You want the truth?  You can’t handle the truth!”  Oh, yeah!

Often I might have “spent” 20 to 40 hours per week watching all kinds of television, then take a break to go to the movies.   Somehow, during this phase, I was also seldom responsible for things that went wrong.  I had a way of rationalizing how things were “the fault of” other people or events.

Have you ever slowed down, become present with yourself while experiencing drama?   With me, I notice my stomach does flip flops.  I’m edgy in my chair.  Anxious.  Curious, want something to happen, usually over which I exercise little to no control; but, desperately wanting to.  Maybe that’s why American Idol is so popular?   It’s a drama we maybe think we can affect if only we dial often enough?  

In short, drama created for me feelings of disease in mind and body.  As you would expect through the laws of attraction, I was frequently ill during my TV-a-holic phase.   I believe media and interpersonal drama manifested in disease in my physical body temple.

Drama is kind of like what I imagine heroin to be.  It sucks you in.  Is seductive.   You feel the pain in a whole new yummy way.  Drama is an addictive form which gradually poisons and ultimately may kill us.

Recently, I attended a play that was very well done about the tortuous drama in people stuck in their lives and stories.  I felt my guts twisting, turning and churning.   A couple of years back, I would have admired and respected the artistry of the writers and actors and set designers to so artfully bring this drama to life for me and to enable this rush of feelings to course throughout me. 

However, I realized during a check at intermission that the ending was equally bleak, that the whole construct was for me a miscreating curse and choose to leave the play.  Had some fun, cleared out the negative energy and went on to have a fabulous evening full of positive creations. 

This effect works consciously, unconsciously and/or subconsciously.  Have you ever turned the music on and been driving along unconscious to what words you were singing along or listening to and the mood it was cocreating in your body?  Generally, country music for instance is a real walk through the park of relationship and job drama.  Consumption of these media gives them power to manifest in our lives.

We take care to eat right (well sometimes, but we know what we put in our mouths affects our bodies).  The same is true for the thoughts and media we allow to seep into our minds.   Media consumed unconsciously is no different than drinking a bottle of Diet Coke or rat poison.  You consume the product, it’s gonna do to you what aspartame or rat poison does, regardless if you know what exactly the ingredient was or not.   

So, now I try to be more conscious.  “To read the label”.  Choosing my media so as to create in my life what I believe I desire in life.

I read somewhere not too long ago that the single largest determinant of whether a person is overweight or not is the weight of their peer group.  This to me seems consistent with what the law of attraction would dictate.

It thus is incumbent on us to insure that our relationships are equally healthy on all levels in which we value health, like drug addiction, alcoholism, drama addiction, and so on.

Our personal truth is the antithesis of drama.  As best as I can, I try to choose my personal truth, and better feeling thoughts than drama.

Drama like heroin is poison.  The choice is yours to consume what you will.

Peace and truthfully yours,

Yucel

What is drama?  What does drama look like?  How do we know drama when we see it or feel it?   What is the antithesis of drama?

Drama is this, drama is a story that one tells, wherein the one telling the story narrates the story in such a way, that they are the protagonist, and that others people, events or things in the story are their antagonists.

More plainly, it is a victim story, in which the teller of the story demonstrates how events, people or things have happened to them, been done to them, been done against them.

It is a powerless story, on the part of the story teller, about how events, people and things have conspired to make their lives miserable.

I have heard it said I believe by Dr. Michelle Medrano at New Vision Center Church, web site:  http://www.newvisionaz.org/ , that the stories we have about others are just theories.   This makes sense to me.   For, can we ever know the reality of another person?  I barely know my own reality.  We’ll, I kind of know my own reality.  Well, my reality keeps changing anyway.  So, what’s to know?  For me to tell you the reality of another person, that’s kind of arrogant.  And, it is a kind of arrogance I used to partake in quite a bit, and now quite a bit less.

The point is this, drama is a story told by a story teller, of other peoples stories where in the story teller is a victim.  So, it is a theory, by the story teller about someone else.  

When a third party relays a drama story, there is an Evil Person who does unto a Good Person.  Drama is always however a victim story which lays out the theory of victimization.    A captivating tale of good versus evil.

The payoff for drama is that we through acting like a victim, may gain recognition, from  friends, society, etcetera, by virtue of our victim hood.   “Oh, you poor dear!  You are a victim.  Have a cookie!  And, yes, that bad bad man is a horrible such and such.”   This vindication may seem a pretty big payout for many of us at differing times in our lives.   I’ve used it.  However, it doesn’t really serve us well. 

By participating in this dance, we are first of all creating victimhood for ourselves through the law of attraction.  

You feel like a victim?  You are right.  And, you create more victimhood in your life.  Secondly, we get hooked on the pay off and have to find new exciting ways to gain even more recognition.  Oh, your car was stolen?  Poor dear.  What do you have to lose next to be recognized?

This is not to say there are not true victims.  The difference is if you take responsibility for creating everything in your life by realizing everything happens for a reason.  Getting the help you need.  Telling the Truth about yourself.

Talking in the first person and telling the truth about oneself is the antithesis of drama.  By telling the truth about ourselves, instead of telling the story (our theory) about any antagonists, we rid ourselves of drama, and shed layers of miscreation from our lives, and open ourselves to an inner peace that comes with being responsible for our own truths.

Peace and truth be with you,

Yucel