There is no spoon.

I just finished watching The Matrix. Wow. What an interesting film. I know, I am last one on the planet that has not seen it. If I am not, I highly recommend it. I think that today I am going to run out and rent The Matrix Reloaded and watch it today. I am a tad surprised no one has written the self help book "There is No Spoon" yet. Seems apropos to being an Eastern Philosophy book written for the Western mind.
"There is no spoon." gives us the ability to see the world in a different light. This is really saying that the spoon's make up, properties and limitations are only in your mind. The spoon only exist because we have the preconceived notion that it exist. Some one taught you that that was a spoon. Applying another famous saying- If it walks like a spoon, acts like a spoon, and scoops like a spoon- it must be a spoon. In the Matrix- it only does those things because we believe that it can. It only exists in our silverware drawer because when we open the draw, we expect spoons to be in there.

There is comfort in being a beginner. What I mean is, if you are "in training" then others don't expect that much out of you. No one is depending on you. You can say "I am new here." and you are absolved of responsibility. Before you are an expert, you can back away with out identifying with it. You still don't have to defend it (what ever it is you are involved in). It is really only in a very small way a part of you. As a beginner, you can brush it off and move on to something else.

Once you become an expert at anything, in the world, it becomes part of your identity. You now are expected to defend it if someone doesn't agree with what you are doing. People think that that is who you are. (Even though, it is not who you are.) People depend on you do show them the right way. You are responsible to help others, the beginners. What if you are not the best expert either? What if you are discredited by other experts? What if people don't like you for choosing the path that you chose?

This really is a fear of success and failure. It is a mixed bag. This bag is my spoon. It is impossible to over come the properties because, they all exist, at least in my mind. Not every one will ever agree with me fully (even if I choose no path), and I will eventually have to help others if I become an expert. In reality is that there is no spoon. In reality, these properties mean nothing or everything if I want them too. If I truly believe in my own path, all other properties that do not understand it, or go against it, do not mean anything.

What is your spoon?