The Script - Talk 12 of 25

Topic: The Script

Theme: Freedom 

Author: Barry Sweet

Date: January 7, 2018

Video Production by Tim & Karen Morse. Morsephotography.com

A few years ago I stumbled into this idea of what I call The Script. The Script is something that's in all of us. It's not actually who we are. It's the stuff that we've learned, and it becomes part of us somehow in some sort of osmosis way. But let me explain The Script. Here's an example. An unmarried couple living together… The guy comes home and the woman says Honey, I've got news… I'm pregnant!”. 

Now all of us know The Script.  The Script is there in all of its forms, it's in all of us. There are about six or seven variations of The Script.

Here's just a couple of them: Yay! We’re pregnant and we're going have a baby! 

Here's another one: “Oh no. This is bad…” We can't afford a baby. We've got to get married first, we've got to have money to do this….” 

Here's another one: “Well what are you going to do…? Implying the abortion question. Here's another one: “What are we going to do…? Implying keeping the baby, putting the baby up for adoption, having an abortion. Here's another one. “Is it mine…?” 

So there are all sorts of variations on The Script, but they sort of come out of you as a blurt that's not really thought out. And do we have the chance to ask is “Is this me or is this The Script? And because The Script is so deep and runs so deep, we don't always take the time and the moment… to answer truthfully who we are. We just kick into The Script. 

The response comes almost Autopilot, almost automatic, and yet we can actually stop and say “Gee… how do I feel about this..? What is my true response…? (rather than kicking into The Script, which is an automatic response that's in there). We actually can stop for a moment, and get a hold of who we really are and give a true, honest, genuine, transparent, real, heartfelt answer. 

Let me tell you where The Script comes from… We see it in movies, tv, it's in lyrics of songs, drummed into us since childhood… and it's hard to escape it. 

Let me give you three examples of how I've seen it get into us…  A couple of years ago I went to Disney World, and I was there in the morning and before anything was going on at 6:00 in the morning, I'd ride the monorail and I'd ride around from the Contemporary to the Polynesian to the Grand Floridian and then to the Magic Kingdom and I'd get off at each the places and just be and look around… 

But when I got off at the Magic Kingdom, there at 6:30 in the morning, before the ticket-takers are there, before the custodians were there, before security was there, before Mickey’s there… they're pumping that music into your brain… 

Nobody's even there… and they're just pumping that music in your brain, that you're going to “get married and live happily ever after”. They're pumping The Script into your brain. Here's another example of where it comes from… I call it the International Thinking Noise. I work on the phone all day with visitors across the country that are calling to get Wilderness Permits for backpacking and they'll try to make a decision between which campsite they want and they'll say “Well should I take Arch Rock or Old Forest Inn… Arch Rock or Old Forest Inn, Arch Rock or Old Forest Inn… T-T-T-T, I'll take Arch Rock!” 

Did you hear that…? T-T-T-T?  It's the International Thinking Noise. 

It doesn't matter where you're from. Everybody does it. Where did you go to school to learn that? What class did they teach the International Thinking Noise in?  They don't.  You pick it up. We all pick it up… and it's interesting that most Americans will do four…. “T-T-T-T.” 

Most Europeans will do five “T-T-T-T-T.”  Some people do three… But the International Thinking Noise is alive and well, because it's been drilled into us. 

Here's just one final one. ‘Nother's not a word. “I ate a whole ‘nother sandwich”. ‘Nother’s not a word… but we have all eaten a whole ‘nother sandwich. 

We pick up The Script because it's ambient in culture, it's everywhere and it's also in all of those answers to “Honey I'm pregnant”. 

But if you can sift through all that… and do this thing that my bride calls “Rise Above The Script” (the acronym being not too cool, but… RATS…) Rise Above The Script. We can get in touch with who we really are and have real, genuine relationships with each other. Not these scripted relationships(relationships based on The Script) which is this impersonal…thing… that's out there. We can actually get back in touch with who we are and be real with each other. 

And this brings me to probably one of the most important things I've learned in this life… and that is the difference between Autopilot and Manual Override. Autopilot kicks in, in a heartbeat. It's there.  And Manual Override…. I view it as a big gigantic red lever that you have to grab and go “Ka- chunk” and move it over, so that you can manually override an emotion that you have… a Script that kicks in your brain….

So many things that we go through, we do by Autopilot, and by I want as many of us as we can… to be mindful and awake enough to know how to invoke Manual Override and not just be on Autopilot, but live lives that are deliberate. Like the little sign on my ceiling when I was a kid that said: “Be Deliberate”. And it's helped to keep me awake through the years. 

There is a sign on the wall that the Wilderness Office that says “I am not a teacher, but I am an awakener” -Jonathon Swift. And I love that sign… because there's beauty in being as awake as we can, but I had one employee say to me “That is so arrogant… to think of yourself as an awakener”.  And it is true, we are not awakeners… unless we, like sleepwalkers, bump into each other and help each other wake up… and here's to that. Here's to bumping into each other and helping each other wake up so we can all be awake and live vibrant and vital lives.

OK, final piece on freedom.I was driving through the National Park last summer and at one of the high alpine lakes I met a couple from Belgium and they said “We come here to the National Parks every year. They're so beautiful! What a great thing, we've been to Yosemite and Yellowstone and Everglades and Everywhere… and Glacier and this is our first time at Rocky and we just love it!  And the thing that gets us the most is that Ken Burns film series where he calls the ‘National Parks America's Best Idea’. 

And we even got married in a National Park because we love it in parks so much”. And we did some more conversation and then they walked up to the parking lot and about 20 minutes later, I walked up to the parking lot and they were still there just finishing up a little picnic and getting in the car and I said “You guys mind if we have a deep conversation and they said “No, like what? And I said “Well I thought about what you said… that the National Parks are America's Best Idea…” and I was in a Ranger uniform, and I said “You know, I don't believe that… I believe that the National Parks are America's second best idea.  And they said, “Well what is the first…?” And I said “I think that Freedom is America's first best idea” And they said “Wow…  So do we… because if it wasn't for America and Freedom we'd be speaking German right now”. 

And they said “Your children came and died for our children. 

So, yes… we believe that Freedom is America's best idea as well”.