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NEEDS, DESIRES AND MAGIC

“I’ve come to believe that life works for us and with us . . .”

Ours is a story about necessity becoming an art form. Because I refused the paycheck I was forced to focus on necessity. And because of that I just happened upon a certain magic. I was allowed to see what really happens when you have desires but can’t pursue them beyond a slightly stretched arm’s length.

My circumstance led me to simply reverse the equation we’re all taught. More specifically, it made me reverse the “order of acquisition.” What I soon saw was that if one keeps focused on necessity, primarily using thought as a tool to accomplish only what needs to be done, then things happen and unfold differently.

We have the option either to use thought or to let thought use us. If you take control of the reins of thought you’re inclined to follow the path of necessity. If you let yourself be the mule, desires take the reins and you’re led down one dead-end path after another.

There’s a strong force influencing us to become mules, with desires leading us here and there, everything in modern life telling us to pursue desires, to let them lead our lives, and to build our lives around them on credit. I came to see that what needs to be done is often the last thing we want to do. Doing what’s necessary can be the hardest path to follow because it appears so boring, drab and un-self-fulfilling. Facing needs just seems to lead us to the next damn thing that needs to be done . . . if you look at it that way.

What I found was when I took the reins of thought and focused the mind completely on what truly needs to be done, I got a big surprise. All of my wants and desires, every single one of them, eventually got fulfilled without an ounce of anxiety or a loan payment book.

I discovered the formula for this magic in the early ’70s. I wanted to return to the state of Washington to work for the summer but all I had was a 1941 Willys MB army jeep. It would go 50 mph if it was screaming. If I’d have driven it 3,000 miles I probably would have needed back surgery.

What I needed was a real car. I thought and thought what was the most economical and efficient thing I could drive across the country. I decided on a Volkswagen squareback. It’s like a mini station wagon with excellent gas mileage. I was looking for a ’66 or ’67 because those were the pre-planned obsolescence years. I went all hell on a search for one. As I love to paint cars, I was ready to paint it my favorite color, off white or light tan. I’d find one in crappy shape or just miss one in good shape or I’d find one way out of my price range. Finally I just said, “Screw it, I’ll stay home for the summer.”

I quit searching and within days I got a phone message at my parents’ to call an elderly woman friend of mine, Ruth. I rang Ruth up and she said, “Teddy, I just got a new car and I didn’t trade my old one in – how would you like it for a buck.” I hadn’t seen Ruth in a few years so in my head I pictured some huge old Buick rusting out at the seams. I said I’d come over for a look.

I got there, saw her new, bright yellow VW squareback and drooled. Then she led me around back to an off-white 1967 Volkswagen squareback with 13,000 original miles, price: 1.

When I say all desires get fulfilled, it ain’t always pretty. I come from a family of horsemen. Great Uncle Eugene was a trick rider in the Roy Rogers rodeo circuit. When I got really into wanting a horse, I was offered three within a year or so. There was a lot to do to prepare to keep horses, so the offers went on hold. During that time I was out riding with my buddy Gary on one of his horses, a green broke Palomino who went nuts if he didn’t lead. We had gone down a dead-end trail, so we both turned our horses around, but the very moment my horse realized he was second in line he turned into a bronco. He threw me straight up in the air and I came down on a beech tree root that grew out of the ground like a swamp “cyprus knee.” It was in the shape of human fist. The damn thing hit the joint where my right femur connects to the pelvis and put the whole left side of my body out of whack. Five and a half weeks in a chair, with a trip to the bathroom the biggest challenge of my day – and I never wanted to even smell a horse ever again. Desire satisfied!

I’ve come to believe that life works for us and with us, and that the concept of providence has to do with providing what is necessary, rather than what is desired. It’s a matter of coming into alignment with providence, or the will of Creation, if I can put it that way. You can see the fluidity of providence in the food chains, for example, where and how affluence and excess throw wrenches in its gears. But that’s a philosophic discussion for another time.

Now I’ve said that sometimes our house feels like a conscious being. At times it acts so alive and aware, it’s eerie. My electric shop has a small, glass-roofed bay window facing south. It’s a commercial brand window that had a difficult, puzzling leak on the top frame that holds the glass. I kept meaning to get around to fixing it but it was really intimidating. This one had me stumped.

The roof above the window is covered with dark charcoal-colored shingles. I often lay warped candles on it when the sun is out, to warm them up so they can be straightened. But you’ve got to watch closely or they’ll melt. One day I took a 2-foot-long warped candle out, set it on the roof and went on to something else and spaced out. The candle started to melt and it ran down and sealed the leak. It sure looked like the leaking window fixed itself. Things fix themselves quite often up here.

Another story: I was about to put a new roof on the house. I planned to use an under-layer sheet of ice and water shield. It’s a tar-like substance that goes under the shingle, and it really seals the roof. I wanted to use so much that if you turned the house upside down it would float. I hadn’t quite figured out the economics for acquiring that much of it.

Around that time, Kathy and I stopped at a trailhead parking facility just on the other side of the mountain to eat a picnic lunch. We parked somewhat out of sight, at the edge of the woods. A little time passed and we noticed a roofing company truck pull up a short distance away. They probably assumed our car was empty and we were gone hiking, because they took several rolls of this expensive ice guard from the truck bed, set them just inside the woods and took off. It sure looked to Kathy and me that these guys had pilfered it from a job they were on and were planning to pick it up later, so we thought it was fair game. Those rolls saved us a bunch of money, and now we have a house that might just float if you turned it upside-down.

A Different Reality

A quote that always intrigued me was from the philosopher William James. He said something like: Apart from the reality we are living, there are other profoundly different realities, separated from us by the thinnest of films. I always thought that sounded cool, but I have to admit I’m not exactly sure what he meant.

My guess is these strange new realities aren’t fabrications. They don’t just hang out there obscure and unattainable. I suspect they represent some possibility that could have been attained by a different choice. One simple external step in a new direction could easily effect profound change in our lives, which in turn would go on to effect some profound change within us.

Tubs as practical wall art

Old friends

Beauty in utility

Well-loved copper pots

If those different realities didn’t apply to us, if they weren’t an option, then why the hell would he mention them or question them, or even be aware of them or conceive of them? My guess is he’s talking about realities that are accessible, and you can still change the direction of your step and thereby perhaps change everything.

This book is really about a kind of radical shift to a different reality that James may have been talking about. A radical but very simple shift and all that’s involved is a simple decision, a first step. Any person can make it in the blink of an eye and immediately after that take the first infant step into an entirely new reality. A new light is shed upon everything, and your life changes. Now you’re at peace, and then you do things, where before, you did things hoping to reach peace.

The total response to necessity is simply to do what needs to be done. I want whatever I want, desire what I wish for, I dream about flying a motorized paraglider, but I leave that to a higher will. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna take out a loan. That’s what my life is all about and I just stumbled on it through circumstance.

I wake up every day to choose between 25 different roads to excellent experience and 30 avenues to explore in pursuit of my independence. Not one of them requires a Porsche. I find in facing necessity that self-expression gains a unique and creative independence. It gets honed. Following desire does exactly the opposite.

Focus upon necessity brings a profound change and leads to a different reality. Desires are focused on the future; necessity is faced in the moment. That’s the key to creativity. The key to being able to fix, do, build and invent things is right there in the moment you face a problem or task. When you learn to give a thing permission to fix itself – a task permission to complete itself – you are made to dwell in the moment, with your faculties on full alert. Then the task itself – the broken thing itself – becomes the supervisor. Your only responsibility is to hand it tools. Those tools are your own unique and innate talents set to rest upon common sense. Humble yourself in subservience to the job. Allow the job to do the job.

When you discover this magic for yourself, you become less and less intimidated by life’s trials and labors, for now you have learned to work with things as opposed to against them. Have total faith in yourself. There are so many things we all can accomplish. There is so much we can do and so little that we cannot do. March forward with courage in yourself for you have found patience, you have met necessity. You have achieved the state of effortless effort. You have mystically penetrated to the heart of that saying: “Unless the Lord buildeth the house, the laborers work in vain.”

Every one of us is a tool chest of potential packed to the brim. Some may be missing a few screwdrivers but they are blessed with an excellent array of metric wrenches. Therefore, if you need a screwdriver offer your wrenches. Humanity has enough to fix itself, but if we fail as individuals to realize our non-dividual humanity, what good are the tools? You can’t wipe your ass with a crescent wrench.

It sure would be nice if we all abandoned desire and came to full focus on necessities. We’d all be yelling, “Hey, where’s the energy crisis? . . . Hey, how come nobody’s fighting? . . . Since when did everybody have health care? . . . Mind if I strip the drive train out of your Abrams Tank to make me a 27-foot-wide Rototiller?”

My personal spiritual, philosophical take on life is everywhere in this book, as you’ve already seen. If I don’t touch on some of those aspects you could end up simply trying to replicate things I’ve done and that could be fraught with limitations. My hope is to spark your unique creativity, to set you off on your own inventions. I want you to succeed and not get led down dead-ends. People have often remarked that I’ve done so much, but that’s not the case. I’ve just done one thing. I had one goal and focused all my efforts on it with relatively few sidetracks.

There’s a whole lot of spiritual contemplation behind the torque of my wrench. It’s about starting with baby steps. Everyone can take them and undergo a similar journey to a similar end, but see it expressed in an entirely unique way. Whatever inner self-independence/reliance/sufficiency I have achieved is reflected outward in my life. It colors everything I do. That, of course, coupled with a reverent stewardship. It’s the formula that’s important, and when you hit on it, you get to relax in a kind of self-propelled easy chair where magic happens and miracles are so commonplace you just smile at them, instead of jumping up and down screaming, “Look, did you see what just happened! Can you believe it!!!”