To Be Your Own Master

 

Hi everybody, this is Leo Volont.  Welcome to my home. “An Informal Evening with Leo Volont”.

 

Yeah, the first one went really well. I got a few clicks.  So I didn’t kill the idea.  So here’s another one.

 

Yeah, like I said the other day, we’re in the middle of a Big Project, that two Part Series “The Power of Mythology”.  You know, Part One is actually ready to roll, but I decided to hold it back, you see, Part Two is really a Big Picture view of a Future Mythology, but it really needed a Part One as a kind of an Intro, just to let people know about the issues that we’d need to understand going forward.  So, yeah, I couldn’t post the Intro and then just leave it hanging, right?

 

2   Oh, Yeah, I’m a little concerned with the Series, you know, it’s half spiritual and half kind of political, or sort of futuristic Sci-Fi stuff – neither fish nor fowl, as they say.  And not many people will think issues of Mythology are all that relevant to their lives.  But, really, the appeal here is just Leo turning out a finished project,  you know, FINISHED in the sense of being polished to a Shine. Yeah, he’s gotta  a clever way of putting things , when you give him 30 editorial rewrites and two dozen reading rehearsals, it better be good after all that.  And he’s always contrarian and counter-intuitive and so it will always be Different coming from Leo… you’re never going to hear the same old thing.  Yeah, he’s not trying to recruit anybody into anything.  Just wants people to enjoy thinking for a little while, you know, catch a few laughs and when it’s over, you can go back to your comfortable old Belief Systems. 

 

3  But, yeah, yesterday was a busy day.  Leo put over 30 paragraphs into Video, and very few of them were single takes, and that even after so many of those reading rehearsals… but yeah, it’s different with the Camera running and reading with that light flashing in your face … it ramps up the pressure… which is a good thing, because Leo comes alive under pressure.   

 

But, yeah, 30 paragraphs “in the can” is a pretty good Work Ethic for Leo.  Oh, yeah, You Remember – The other day we were talking about Vivekananda, well, Leo really does admire Vivekananda, having been so active and productive; however, there being a proviso, you know, the cautionary tale that Vivekananda died so young from really just Burn Out.  Yeah, Leo don’t want to die… he’s funny like that.  And, Yeah, when you think about it, Vivekananda could have done 3 times the work at half the pace if he had lived to be 80.

 

4  But, yeah, it took Leo a while to learn how to pace himself.    You see, one of his earliest Visions was of this Celestial Guru who appeared in a great Radiance of Lights and Colors, you know, white and golden lights intermingling with a ward robe of mostly white but with pastel blues and magenta auras and halos.  Yeah, “magenta” … it’s a funny name for a Color – “light purple in guy colors”… that’s a line from “The White Light Paramahamsa Swan Dream”.  But, yeah, this Guru appeared, only to say just this one thing.  He said “To be your own master, you must be your own slave”.  And then, puff, he was gone.

 

5  Okay, Leo was still really young, and he took it simplistically, but he really should have known better.  You see, we know we’re hearing a Spiritual Statement because it embodies Opposites while interrelating them, but Leo was relatively new to “ Spirituality Town” and so he paid attention a lot more to the Master part, when, really, that ‘Slave Thing’ should have been raising some real Red flags, right?   But Yeah, To Leo, at the time, the Guru might as well have said “To be your own Master, you gotta rub two coins together, preferably Gold, you know”, and, yeah, that’s apparently what Leo heard , and  so  Leo just started rubbing… and making a Slave of himself.   So, yeah, with stuff like this you need to do either the Greek “Moderation in Everything” or take the Buddhist View of the  “Middle Way”.   

 

6  Oh, I was thinking of the Middle Way and got this Poetic Image in my Head, you know, I saw a River Valley in my Mind’s Eye, and thought “the Middle of the Valley is always the River, right? So take to the River and you can live your life kicked back on a boat, right, just floating off to the Sea, no muss, no fuss.   Yeah it could probably use a little work, couldn’t it.

 

Oh, and that reminds me of another “River Valley” poetic image that came to my mind, you know, in regards to that Old and Most Primary of Spiritual Questions, you know, “What is the Meaning of Life?”

 

Yeah, if you don’t count the syllables, it has a real Japanese Flare thing going for it.  Yeah… check it out.

 

Life is like Climbing a Mountain

When you get to the Top

Your Done

Then you can Turn Around

and See a River Valley

 

7  Yeah, sometimes it makes me wonder if Poets know what their own poems mean.  You know, I’d think that if they do, then the poem would be too shallow to really care that much about, right?  Yeah, Leo, doesn’t over tax himself with trying figure out what he “means” all the time…. To Leo stuff either sounds “cool” or it doesn’t and that’s all he’s really worried about.   

 

8  But, yeah, back then when Leo was new to Spirituality, well, he was studying History and that should have tipped him off about the Master Slave thing.  Really, in 100 Level History Courses you always hit a discussion on the Oracles of Delphi… Herodotus, the Father of History, talks a lot about them.  You know, I always thought that Maybe they were a literary invention of his… you know Herodotus, some of his stories are too good or funny to be strictly “true”.  Yeah, he was the Father  of History for being first, but I think the Father of GOOD History was Thucydides with his “Pelopannesean Wars”, really heavy stuff there. 

 

9  But the point the Professors make  about the Oracles is that every Pronouncement could be taken two ways, and the Materialistic Political View was that the Oracles were just covering their azzes, you know, they could say “What!? You thought we meant THAT! Naaa! we meant the other thing”.   but, yeah, my take on it was that Herodotus was hinting that one could not avoid Moral Responsibility, and one always still has a choice to make , even after consulting the Oracles.  

 

 10  Yeah, I watched a movie recently… “Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her”, and close to the beginning of the movie, before you realize how great it is, Calista Flockhart gets done doing this really great Tarot Card Reading for Glenn Close and at the door walking out she turns back to Glenn and says something like “You know, none of this is curved in Stone, and Nothing Happens Without You”.   Wow, Man, Cool Huh!  Yeah, there’s a lot to process there but my take on it is that you can’t just be a spectator to your own life.  You gotta take the Walk if you want Life to be worth your while.  

 

11  But, yeah, Young Leo pushed himself really hard for a while, given his usual leisure loving nature. But, really, when you think about what a ‘Master’ is, well, it’s really just collecting more and more responsibilities. Career-wise, you just keep getting more and more Territory to cover, you know, Empire Building, and that comes with collisions with other Master Types pushing back, you know, you’re not the only one with Ambition, right.  And whenever the Masters get into a Fight, well, it’s always the Slaves that take all the lumps, isn’t it.  So, yeah, after a few decades Leo finally saw the more comprehensive view of “To Be Your Own Master You Must Be Your Own Slave”, and now he’s more inclined to “throw the dog a bone” once in a while and give the Slave a break, or maybe a good Night Off.

 

So, yeah, after a really productive day, that 2^nd Part of “the Power of Mythology” is almost done.   And so Leo unwinded a little bit again last night.  Here we catch Leo making up a New Song that he’ll be humming all day today.  His working Title for it is “what you see”.   Here, let me roll it and you’all let me know what you think…