Original Yes, and Even More Designed by Bobby Matherne Copyright 1998

Yes, and Even More!

Book Jacket

"Is this a book of poems?"
Yes, and even more.
"Is this a book of dialogue?"
Yes, and even more.
"Will it stretch my mind?"
Yes, and even more.
"Will I learn to say yes to life?"
Yes, and even more.

Notes: Written on August 9, 1996 in the kitchen of our Seascape Villa C33 on Miramar Beach in Florida. WP'ed into Del's 386 Leading Edge laptop that sucks, but it's the only one we have available, up until now. [Added Note, January 18, 1998: shortly after this note was written Del's dad gave her an Extensa Pentium laptop.]

"Yes, and even more" or YAEM is a meme, a unit of meaning that, like a gene, can propagate itself through generations of living creatures through the mechanism of memory. [Thanks to Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, for the word and concept of meme.]

What is the design structure of YAEM? Consider another of my memes, ",Up until now". The process for using UUN effectively is to state a limitation (some negative condition or restriction you perceive in life), breathe, and add (aloud or silently) "Up until now." The structure can be given as:

[limitation], up until now. (The comma marks the place for the breath. The breath is crucial. I noticed in the beginning that people for whom UUN didn't work were omitting the breath. They ran the words together quickly without pausing so that they didn't have to change. Here is an example of doing it correctly:

I haven't learned anything new today, up until now.

The process for using YAEM is: after someone has stated a positive statement, you state, "Yes, and even more." That opens both of you to possibilities that neither of you may have considered, up until now. You may not consider positive statements as limitations, but every statement is made of words, which are at best maps of reality, and the territory which comprises the ultimate reality is always greater than any map that represents it.

For example: Someone says, "This will be a honey of a new car." And you say, "Yes, and even more." That will open up new possibilities for both of you in thinking about the car. I won't list any such possibilities, even for the sake of example, because the opening up must be unfettered by others' maps. I heartily recommend that when you use YAEM that you do not suggest possibilities to the other person. Certainly you should think of possibilities in your own head, but follow each one with a hearty Yes, and even more. If the other person says aloud some possibility that YAEM suggested to her, gently repeat, "Yes, and even more." Even the more hardened possibility speakers will eventually relent and admit there are more possibilities than they are able to conceive from now on. As for impossibility speakers, stick with [, up until now] before moving to the more advanced YAEM.

The point is to think lovingly of all the possibilities that YAEM opens for you and allow the other person to also think of their own possibilities. They may like or resist your "even mores", but their own "even mores" are irresistible. Let YAEM become like an unanswered question. That's a question that when someone asks it, you allow to go unanswered so that even more answers come to you. It's a similar process, isn't it?
Remember for the best effect, let the "even mores" reside in the other person's mind, to be answered again and again as new discoveries are revealed, e. g., by the presence of the new car.

This material is COPYRIGHTED (C) 1998 21st Century Education, Inc


To Check Out Other Books:

Return to Home Page