I’ve said over and over, if we’re going to do it let’s have fun. Let’s enjoy each other. Yes, there’ll be complaining and moaning and groaning and that goes with being a human being. And, let’s have fun. After you yell and scream and tell somebody how they did it wrong, let’s have fun.  – John-Roger

This letter from John-Roger was first published in the New Day Herald, March 1991.

The things in life that seem to scare us are not as bad as the things we use to scare ourselves, but we won’t look directly at them. Sometimes we’ll take a glimpse, or just a glance, and hope that we can see it enough to gestalt it and not have a fear of it. The biggest fears that we have are about what we think we might uncover. What might a person uncover in themselves that would be so frightening?

“Maybe they’ll find out I’m not who I say I am. Maybe they’ll find out that I can quote Shelly but I can’t quote Emerson. Or maybe they’ll think that I can ride a race horse but I can’t plow a field. Or they may think that I can only talk at eight o’clock at night when the sun goes down and in the morning I can’t carry on a decent conversation.”

Do those sound like fearful things? Yet people involve themselves in things that are like that. “What if they find out that I have false teeth? What if they find out that I had augmented breast surgery? What if they find out that I have false chins and cheeks and liposuctions and tummy tucks and hair implants? What if they find out.. ?” Do you know what they’ll find out? They’ll just find out that. That’s all.

“But what if they find out that and then they think I’m phony?” What if they don’t find out that and they still think you’re phony? “But they won’t know why they think I’m phony, and that’s okay. I can still masquerade.”

The process of being a human being is not a convenient thing. It’s extremely inconvenient. Do you realize how many other people you’ve got to gain approval of in order for you to keep existing as who you are? It’s remarkable, isn’t it?

I think we’re going to find, as we move more and more towards being at Windermere and coming together there, that we’re going to have a greater sense of fun and freedom. The limitation of our own shame will remove itself from us.

Some of you are going to say, “I don’t want to get on the horse because what will I look like when I fall off?” You’re going to look like you fell off a horse. “Well, I don’t know how I’m going to handle that.” You’re either going to cry, or you’ll laugh, or you’ll be quiet, or you’ll give a yell, or you’ll do something. So what?

“But I’m afraid that I’ll be shamed.” Don’t let that idea stand in the way of your doing something.

“What if the horse doesn’t like me?” Well, I guess it’s the same thing as having an elevator door close in your face, and it goes up and leaves you standing there and you’re rejected. You either get on the horse or get another horse, like you get on another elevator.

Do you ever hear people talk about risking? This is one of the tenets of one of the organizations in the educational division. To risk.

When the pleasure in the doing becomes really valuable to us, then it matters very little what the goal is. The goal could be almost anything and it will be fine. But if the goal’s fine, and it’s mucky to get there, it won’t be that fine.

That’s why I’ve said over and over, if we’re going to do it let’s have fun. Let’s enjoy each other. Yes, there’ll be complaining and moaning and groaning and that goes with being a human being. And, let’s have fun. After you yell and scream and tell somebody how they did it wrong, let’s have fun.

That’s the keynote to what we’re doing at Windermere. There are going to be serious things happening. There’ll be emotional things that happen, and we’re still going to have fun.

So in the midst of your crisis when you’re there if somebody just around the corner is laughing hysterically over something funny, don’t take it personally. You might try laughing too.

When I hear the word “Windermere,” something inside of me laughs. I don’t know why that is. I have different images, but even then, no one image does it for me, except all of them seem to do it.

New knowledge is risky. You often have to do something with it. To preach new knowledge is even riskier unless you say, “This is just information, do with it as you please.” That’s what I do; I just give you the information and then you do with it as you please.

Baruch Bashan