Simple Facts and Ordinary Moments

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I was busy transporting people around last night and re-watching the current project to ensure cinematic flow into the dramatic conclusion (!) when I realized that the DNC debates were on live. Irritated that I had spaced I turned on my weak wifi in time to hear Joe offer up his favorite opening line. You know the one. “The simple facts are…” Dear Joe, and anyone else running for any office, anywhere, please drop this tired, demeaning and totally obsolete cliché immediately. It is ten times worse than a stammering ‘well’, a hundred times worse than “ya know” and a thousand times more cringe worthy than the patronizing and combative, “look…’ 

“Well, ya know, look, the simple facts are…..’ This is what we know, Joe: THERE ARE NO SIMPLE FACTS. 

In the same way that Dan Millman, in the Peaceful Warrior saga had the student Danny meditate outside Socrate's garage in the freezing rain until his legs were numb to come up with a meaningful thought. Danny tried and tried to relax into a deep state of peace and understanding in order to accomplish the assignment, twice running back inside to tell the master of his enlightened wisdom and success. Each time he was rewarded with the reality of his failure. Finally, after sitting all-night, he slowly, with grace and presence, walked into the garage and stood before Socrates who was finishing a tune-up on a ’65 Ford F-150, and announced without a note of gloat, that, ‘THERE ARE NO ORDINARY MOMENTS.” 

He was immediately dismissed and instructed to go and get some sleep, his assignment completed. 

It might be a stretch to compare a political debate, despite its volatile urgency and global ramification, to one line from a spiritual how-to book, or perhaps more accurately a spiritual coming of age work of fiction, yet at the same time they share one important commonality: Nothing is easy, everything relentlessly spins in perpetual motion, changes, evolves, deepens, expands, heats and cools, lives and dies, making all this the exact opposite of simple, truly the epitome of dynamic. Facts? According to who? Facts as I see them are somethings, often, the flip side of the same coin. You say yes and I say no. You say high and I say low. If ever there was a legitimate constant, an absolute, to add to the short-list of universally accepted proverbs, currently containing only death and taxes, it might be wise, true and necessary, to amend ‘there are no ordinary moments’ and maybe even, with debate, ‘there are no simple facts’ to them. 

This follows nicely the First Noble Truth that life is suffering. With these obscurities at the forefront of our collective consciousness this damp, dark and soaking wet Friday morning, let’s line them up, select the batting order, mash-up the set-list and see what we got. The Official and Absolute, official size and weight, pro-style, menu of earthy constants, aka things that everyone, without exception, will experience at one point or another:

1) Life is Suffering.

2) Death.

3) Taxes.

4) There are no simple facts.

5) There are no ordinary moments.

Carry on and continue your practice.