Evon Davis

Why Everything Has Beauty In It

In A Separate Reality, don Juan says, “A warrior knows that her life will be over altogether too soon; she knows that she, as well as everybody else, is not going anywhere; she knows, because she sees, that nothing is more important than anything else.  Nothing being more important than anything else, she chooses any act, and acts it out as if it matters to her. Her controlled folly makes her say that what she does matters and makes her act as if it did, and yet she knows that it doesn’t; so when she fulfills her acts she retreats in peace, and whether her acts were good or bad, or worked or didn’t, is in no way part of her concern.

“But then if nothing really matters, as you ask me, how can I go on living?”

To understand what don Juan is saying here, it’s important to remember that he always says a warrior has unbending intent.  So the paradox is that we commit to an act with unbending intent, and yet at the same time are completely unattached to the outcome.

How can that be?

It is so, because when you know that you are mortal, you don’t have time to waste on self-pity, self-doubt, or regret.  A warrior cannot waste time on those things.  As long as you commit to your acts with unbending intent, that’s all that matters.  There is no such thing as a bad outcome or a failure.

A warrior is fully present in each moment and sees the beauty in that moment, whether you are picking up scrap metal or making fudge, it’s the act of being fully present that makes it successful, not the financial outcome.  A warrior makes the decision to do what he’s doing and he lets go of any doubts that he should be doing something different; he lets go of regrets about what he is not doing.  Life is too short for doubt or regret.

A warrior works as hard as she can for what she wants and if she doesn’t get it, she looks instead upon the beauty in what she has:  her freedom, a friend, the chance to make a new start with no personal history, setting upon a journey of discovery, creating the distance necessary to feel desire, a return to innocence.

When all outcomes are equal, the warrior is lusty for life.  There’s so much at the banquet.  A warrior never goes hungry.