Neuro–Linguistic Programming: Volume I. The Study of the Structure of Subjective Experience

VII. CONCLUSION

The Denver Zoo, so the tale goes, was very interested in acquiring a polar bear. The director of the zoo at that time, a grey haired old gent with a long white beard, had quite a penchant for polar bears. He had always been awed by their large and muscular bodies, and respected the primordial intelligence that he felt they demonstrated in their slow but elegant movements and that he saw so clearly in their keen eyes. Most of all, however, he liked their long, thick, pure white fur that reminded him of the hair that adorned his own face. Because of this special affinity that he felt toward the bears the director decided that the polar bears of the Denver Zoo should have the largest and most naturalistically built cage of all the animals in the zoo. So he set his designers, engineers and construction crew to work to build an enclosure that was so big and naturalistic in its representation of the splendor of the arctic terrain that it would rival in craftsmanship and expense the cages of even the largest and most famous zoos of the world.

The construction of the polar bear's enclosure was only about half completed, however, when the director was offered a good deal on one of the most beautiful polar bears he had ever laid eyes upon. In fact, when he was inspecting the animal the director almost had the experience that he was looking in the mirror when he looked into the eyes of the beast who swayed slowly back and forth as he returned the directors stare.

Since good deals on polar bears don't come along very often (and such a magnificent polar bear at that) the director decided to go ahead and purchase the bear even though its enclosure was only partially completed. The bear was sedated and when it awoke it found itself in a small cage made of thick metal bars that had been

placed directly in the middle of the giant naturalistic enclosure that was still under construction. It was to remain in the smaller cage until the larger structure was finished.

The small enclosure was just large enough that the polar bear could take about four good sized steps before being halted by the cold metal bars. Having nothing else in particular to do while inhabiting the small cage the bear soon developed a habit of pacing its tiny environment. It would take four steps in one direction, rear up on its hind legs as it made a 180 degree turn slowly and with a conviction that only polar bears are capable of, and take four steps in the opposite direction before rearing up by slowly thrusting its front paws high into the air as it made its turn. All day long the bear would slowly pace back and forth in its cage carefully observing the work crew as they labored away on the huge enclosure that surrounded it.

Finally, after months of painstaking craftsmanship and steady labor, the zoo's construction crew completed the polar bear's new home. The bear was against sedated and small cage of metal bars that had been the bear's world for so many months was removed. A large crowd of zoo visitors along with the entire zoo staff and construction crew and, of course, the proud director, gathered around the enclosure and anxiously waited to see how the bear would take to its beautiful new environment. The polar bear awoke, cautiously got to its feet and shook the remains of the drug induced sleep from its head. The director could almost feel the excitement that must have surely been building in bear's own breast as it made ready to explore its beautiful lifelike environment. He eagerly watched as the bear took four slow but steady steps before rearing up, paws high in the air, and turned around to take four steps in the opposite direction, rearing again as it turned and retraced its first steps and reared… .

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The examples and description we have offered you in this book represent only a few of an infinite number of possible applications that may be made using the Neuro–Linguistic Programming model we have presented within these pages. You now have the unprecedented opportunity to go into the world in which you have chosen to involve yourself and explore, discover, rediscover and generate experience that you might not even believe possible. NLP, as we have said over and over, is a user oriented model. The information

we have imparted to you here will be useless to you unless you go out and begin to APPLY IT to your lives. We strongly urge you to take the patterns you have learned about here and try them out for yourself. Our guess is you will find that they work, uncannily. If you do find discrepancies in the model, grey areas, or counter-examples we congratulate you and remind you that discrepancies, grey areas and counter–examples are not necessarily indications that a model should be tossed out or ignored but rather point out the directions in which the model may be clarified, expanded and evolved. Whenever you do something that doesn't work fate has provided you with an opportunity to learn something more about yourself and the world around you. The map is not the territory.

Limiting yourself to a particular model of the world (including the one we have presented here), no matter how "real" it may appear to you, can stop you from expanding and enriching your experience of the world. If, as you attempt to apply these patterns and techniques or as you read over portions of this text, you have the experience that many people label "confusion" we invite you to try to try something new and stay with it for once rather than try to avoid or dispel it. Confusion is the gateway to new realities. Confusion simply means things do not make sense (and we like to think of "sense" in its literal meaning here) given your current model of the world.

In reading over this book ourselves we are well aware that it is not an "easy" book to read in many ways — that was not our intent writing this text. We have written and published other books (such as Frogs to Princes) where we have put the patterns presented here into simpler and more entertaining language. Our purpose in writing this book the way we have has been to push to create a new vocabulary, a new syntax, a new way of thinking about the world rather than trying to make the Neuro–Linguistic Programming model fit existing ways of thinking. The rigor and syntax of this book are themselves an attempt at programming. If you have read this entire book your perceptions and ways of thinking about human behavior will be dramatically altered. This book has been an invitation and a challenge to the reader to think and process as we do.

If you have found the content of this book exciting and wish to learn more, or if you are unconvinced that this material is valid or useful, we again extend our invitation to you to join us at one of our seminars or workshops where we will make these patterns easily available to all of your senses. We also invite you to read any of our other books including the next book in this series, Neuro–Linguistic Programming, Volume II, in which we will apply the model that has been developed here to present and analyze the strategies that we have found to the most effective and well–formed for achieving the outcomes for which they were created. In Volume II we will present the strategies that have been proven to be most efficient and elegant for achieving successful results in areas and disciplines ranging from learning physics, to playing chess, to making decisions, to learning to play a musical instrument, to creating entirely new models of the world for yourself. In the second volume we will also explore more specifically how to apply Neuro–Linguistic Programming to your work and everyday life.

If you are planning to have future contact with us, we look forward to meeting you. Until then, enjoy your explorations.