Get Confident, Stupid!
CONTINUED (PAGE 4 OF 4)
···
Apparently, Condon is aware of the chronic bleeding of the group's self-will. Shortly, he begins to drill into our heads the essential nature of spreading the Landmark word, or "enrolling," which in Forumspeak refers to our urgent obligation to share our transformation with everyone whom we meet so they are "touched, moved, and inspired," but which I take to mean our obligation to market the curriculum relentlessly for the rest of our lives.
A guy called his father the night before to "get complete" with him, and overall it has gone well. Unfortunately, he neglected to ask him to come to our graduation night, when we are supposed to bring new recruits.
Condon is furious.
Not only are you not getting it, he tells us, but now you are really running short on time. It's the fourth quarter and are down 50-0, he says, and I'm thinking about refusing to coach you.
Looking naked and defenseless at the microphone, the guy who failed to invite his father to graduation tries to explain why, but Condon won't hear it. Excuses are rackets.
The seemingly impromptu speech, which begins from the director's chair but ends with the circulating leader a mere—a thrilling—three feet from my chair, seems to go on for hours. For long periods, Condon is silent. Fear of failure hangs in the air. This man who has tried to free us from fear is scaring us straight.
The tension becomes unbearable, and core participants begin to stand and ask Condon not to give up on us, to please coach us, to believe that we will "get it." Many have fallen enthusiastically into Landmark Forumspeak, and they say things like, "Richard, I have been out of my integrity, but now I am creating for myself and my life the possibility of being transformed and enrolling others in my transformation."
After nearly forty desperate hours, scant sleep, ragged emotions, aching heads and bodies hungry for Advil, after all this magnetic sucking in, I think most of us, even those careering happily toward a breakthrough, would accept anything the leader tells us, if this thing would just end. Thus, we are ready. As evening falls outside the ballroom, the imparting of the final, the essential, the transforming message of the Landmark Forum is upon us. Condon writes it on a chalkboard:
Life is empty and meaningless, and that life is empty and meaningless is empty and meaningless.
As you might imagine, with this quasi-existentialist pronouncement the room erupts in jubilation. The group is infused with energy and is acting as if the crappy past as we knew it won't hurt us anymore, because, we've been told, it never really happened. Before the Forum, we were "meaning-making machines," like all the other untransformed humans. Now we are free of that affliction.
People are laughing again. Everyone is nodding like bobbleheads Condon has just flicked. There are bright beaming smiles all around me.
I've rarely felt more alone, but I hide my bitterness behind a wildly inauthentic smile. I actually applaud along with the group as people go to the microphone to say that they are finally free.
By the third testimonial, I can't take it anyone. I turn to the woman next to me, point to where Condon has written the meaningless message, and say, "You really believe that?" She turns dark, crosses her legs, folds her arms, and appears to regret having invited me to join her and her Landmarkian boyfriend for dinner. I am not cooperating. The group and I have officially rejected each other. I am an outlier and always will be.
···
I'd thought I wanted change as much as anyone else in this room. And like any good American, I thought I wanted it in a weekend. But these breakthroughs I'm witnessing here seem too sudden, too arbitrary, too much in line with somebody else's idea of who or how we ought to be. They seem far too dependent on our weaknesses and our currently weakened state.
Most of those I meet at the Landmark Forum tell me they came at the unrelenting appeals of their recruiters. Nevertheless, I'd say a good 75 percent from my group sign up for the next seminar of their own free will. (Indeed, many will go on to host Landmark Forum recruitment meetings in their homes or to become trainees who keep the chairs lined up sharply, monitor the ballroom doors, pass mysterious notes to the leader, and are generous with hugs, warm smiles, and advice for Landmark neophytes.) I'm bewildered by their desire to spend four more interminable days staring at themselves. By now I am so sick of myself and my rackets that all I want to do is go home and read tragic biographies of complete strangers or help old people I've never met cross busy streets. Anything to take my mind off of me.
During the frenzy of enrollment, those of us who've remained steadfast are paired up for one final sharing exercise. My partner is a young man with a laid-back Jimmy Stewart drawl. We've been instructed to discuss how we are going to live a life of integrity, or something. But he's got a problem. The night before the course started, back when he had no integrity, he got laid. "By a really great girl," he says. Now he's wondering if he needs to tell his girlfriend about it. I'm not sure what to tell him at first, but then I make a suggestion. "Maybe you should go ask Richard what to do."
"But…we're supposed to go on vacation next week," he says. "I don't want to ruin it."
Jimmy Stewart has stuck it out, but he doesn't really want to change. I feel the same way. I don't want to be what they want me to be. Maybe, as Condon has told us, this makes me "cynical and resigned." Maybe. It's a strange but enduring contradiction in me, and perhaps in you, too: Much as I hate myself sometimes, much as I crave change, I really don't want to be anybody else.
TAGS Self-improvement, Men's Lives, landmark forum, self-help
Page 1 2 3 4
Apparently, Condon is aware of the chronic bleeding of the group's self-will. Shortly, he begins to drill into our heads the essential nature of spreading the Landmark word, or "enrolling," which in Forumspeak refers to our urgent obligation to share our transformation with everyone whom we meet so they are "touched, moved, and inspired," but which I take to mean our obligation to market the curriculum relentlessly for the rest of our lives.
A guy called his father the night before to "get complete" with him, and overall it has gone well. Unfortunately, he neglected to ask him to come to our graduation night, when we are supposed to bring new recruits.
Condon is furious.
Not only are you not getting it, he tells us, but now you are really running short on time. It's the fourth quarter and are down 50-0, he says, and I'm thinking about refusing to coach you.
Looking naked and defenseless at the microphone, the guy who failed to invite his father to graduation tries to explain why, but Condon won't hear it. Excuses are rackets.
The seemingly impromptu speech, which begins from the director's chair but ends with the circulating leader a mere—a thrilling—three feet from my chair, seems to go on for hours. For long periods, Condon is silent. Fear of failure hangs in the air. This man who has tried to free us from fear is scaring us straight.
The tension becomes unbearable, and core participants begin to stand and ask Condon not to give up on us, to please coach us, to believe that we will "get it." Many have fallen enthusiastically into Landmark Forumspeak, and they say things like, "Richard, I have been out of my integrity, but now I am creating for myself and my life the possibility of being transformed and enrolling others in my transformation."
After nearly forty desperate hours, scant sleep, ragged emotions, aching heads and bodies hungry for Advil, after all this magnetic sucking in, I think most of us, even those careering happily toward a breakthrough, would accept anything the leader tells us, if this thing would just end. Thus, we are ready. As evening falls outside the ballroom, the imparting of the final, the essential, the transforming message of the Landmark Forum is upon us. Condon writes it on a chalkboard:
Life is empty and meaningless, and that life is empty and meaningless is empty and meaningless.
As you might imagine, with this quasi-existentialist pronouncement the room erupts in jubilation. The group is infused with energy and is acting as if the crappy past as we knew it won't hurt us anymore, because, we've been told, it never really happened. Before the Forum, we were "meaning-making machines," like all the other untransformed humans. Now we are free of that affliction.
People are laughing again. Everyone is nodding like bobbleheads Condon has just flicked. There are bright beaming smiles all around me.
I've rarely felt more alone, but I hide my bitterness behind a wildly inauthentic smile. I actually applaud along with the group as people go to the microphone to say that they are finally free.
By the third testimonial, I can't take it anyone. I turn to the woman next to me, point to where Condon has written the meaningless message, and say, "You really believe that?" She turns dark, crosses her legs, folds her arms, and appears to regret having invited me to join her and her Landmarkian boyfriend for dinner. I am not cooperating. The group and I have officially rejected each other. I am an outlier and always will be.
···
I'd thought I wanted change as much as anyone else in this room. And like any good American, I thought I wanted it in a weekend. But these breakthroughs I'm witnessing here seem too sudden, too arbitrary, too much in line with somebody else's idea of who or how we ought to be. They seem far too dependent on our weaknesses and our currently weakened state.
Most of those I meet at the Landmark Forum tell me they came at the unrelenting appeals of their recruiters. Nevertheless, I'd say a good 75 percent from my group sign up for the next seminar of their own free will. (Indeed, many will go on to host Landmark Forum recruitment meetings in their homes or to become trainees who keep the chairs lined up sharply, monitor the ballroom doors, pass mysterious notes to the leader, and are generous with hugs, warm smiles, and advice for Landmark neophytes.) I'm bewildered by their desire to spend four more interminable days staring at themselves. By now I am so sick of myself and my rackets that all I want to do is go home and read tragic biographies of complete strangers or help old people I've never met cross busy streets. Anything to take my mind off of me.
During the frenzy of enrollment, those of us who've remained steadfast are paired up for one final sharing exercise. My partner is a young man with a laid-back Jimmy Stewart drawl. We've been instructed to discuss how we are going to live a life of integrity, or something. But he's got a problem. The night before the course started, back when he had no integrity, he got laid. "By a really great girl," he says. Now he's wondering if he needs to tell his girlfriend about it. I'm not sure what to tell him at first, but then I make a suggestion. "Maybe you should go ask Richard what to do."
"But…we're supposed to go on vacation next week," he says. "I don't want to ruin it."
Jimmy Stewart has stuck it out, but he doesn't really want to change. I feel the same way. I don't want to be what they want me to be. Maybe, as Condon has told us, this makes me "cynical and resigned." Maybe. It's a strange but enduring contradiction in me, and perhaps in you, too: Much as I hate myself sometimes, much as I crave change, I really don't want to be anybody else.
TAGS Self-improvement, Men's Lives, landmark forum, self-help
Page 1 2 3 4