They were born long ago now, but the real story is that there were actually
Four Little Piggies: two sets of twin piglets.

It was quite gruesome, unfortunately, but right after these four little pigs
were born the Big Bad Wolf gobbled down both their parents. That's Life in
the Neanderthal Time Fast Lane... The young ones scampered for their lives.
Hardie and Softie were the older twins names. The younger pair chose even
more unusual monikers. Bridge was thus third out of the four. The last little
piggy’s name got lost in the scramble to escape the Wolf.
It’s nickname soon became Sleepy.

No Pig Parents meant only minimal scraps of love to go around - this was right
back at the beginning of Pig History, you see. Given their circumstances, they
were in deep trouble from the get go. The fearsome Wolf soon started
threatening to control their lives. Quite pertinent to our theme here, the
young pigs had four different types of reactions.

1. Older by a few seconds than his twin sister, Hardie figured out pretty
quickly what to do - adrenaline would work... “I know how to fix his clock, I’ll
beat him at his own game. Life with Wolfie around won’t be nice, it’s true.
But his style works. All I have to do is Dominate all the other piggies and I’ll
be fine. A nice 10,000 square foot home in brick, a Hummer each for me and
the wifey and I’ll have him beat quite nicely!” Later he was heard to brag to
his younger siblings: “It’s an easy choice, pardners.
You’re either with us or agin us.”

2. Next, although she had the same close to human DNA and was born almost
on Hardie’s rump, Softie had the reverse hormonal reaction. She wanted to
run - yet shrank into herself and cried. She knew the wolf would come and
beat down Any Door, Any House where she tried to live. Depressed, defeated
and knowing she’d always be feeling Negated, she decided then and there to
work as a servant at Hardie’s house - or else for the Wolf
whenever he required it.

She soon developed an excellent internal radar system. It worked perfectly.
Set in place in her tummy, it constantly searched for Hardie and Wolfie’s
weapons of Mutually Assured Destruction. Not an easy life, but Softie soon
knew who she should serve when.

3. When Bridge had arrived, the active part of the second twin set, there’d
been confusion as to her or his gender. The few minutes birthing delay did
make a difference, though. It gave Bridge more Perspective to be sure.
Looking around, she/ he could see partial merit to both the first twins types of
reactions. All the same, the devastation from Hardie seemed Really Crazy and
Softie’s answer didn’t appear much better. Earnest to set things right, Bridge
searched for a whole Long, Pooh type Hour for a solution. It finally came,
even before the genome was fully mapped: Compromise.

From that point on there was no stopping this Bridging. Messianic, using a
vast array of Normalizing Beliefs, he/ she got to Work. Ignoring differences
between Hardie, Softie, Wolf and even his younger twin Sleepy, Bridge began
to make a Superficially Okay World out of that previous chaos. Grace had to
be molded from these circumstances, terrible as they were.
The Search for the Good was On.

None of the others really understood, but Bridge KNEW what was right. All
the other piggies and players on the surface of the planet would eventually get
along nicely together. Bridge would make sure of it. They Had to All Get
Along: there was No Other Solution. Meaning well - yet being delusional -
certainly guilty, anxious, worried, somatizing all manner of ills, Bridge is still
working hard in each of us all these years later.

4. Born last and passive on this prehuman scene, you can guess how Sleepy
solved all this insanity, right? You got it. Sleepy knew what to do: Get drunk
at that place down the street - The Pig Trough. Alcoholics Anonymous
meetings were soon required by Bridge, yes, but Sleepy just went to the
next level of denial. “Piece of cake” as some far distant
British ancestors would say...

Sleepy’s Problems were now soon All Resolved on Ativan, shopping or Reality
TV addiction, Prozac, Caffeine (or some of that nice cake!) Stoned, asleep or
addicted in some other happy way whenever the pain and craziness got too
close, Sleepy knew Nirvana was Here, collected together in Hardie 's nice
version of Consumerville. Those high rental rates were just the price
you had to pay. Black Angry Humour R Us...

This was prehistory and all four pigs never got to hear of Plato’s cave, of
course. They never imagined they might be living in such a place.
Their world was Dualistic and that was an end to it.

That they live on in your body and awareness is not a problem, right? More
Conscious? How could any of us in modern times accuse them within us of not
being awake, each in their own way? Mindful, Hah! Even advanced by ten
thousand years here, how can you possibly be mindful, balanced in any more
basic way than the life stance choices they made so long ago?

In this Now moment, then, even as an up to date Human, you believe you only
have those four options. Like formulaic AutoStyles to your awareness options,
you fear that you can only Enact your life in a Hard Pushing way, Softly
Negatingly Avoid, Bridge or Sleep through Fear’s Wolfish Reality
any day you spend on the planet.

Don’t these four styles sound familiar? There are combo versions too: they
cover for each other. How could there be other options? Ahhh,
there’s the point of the Way Off Autopilot book.

You do know somewhere within you that Balance and Mindfulness are the
answers. You have heard of the Tao. You believe we are all Connected and
feel sick with wars, strife, hate and widespread destruction on the world. We
have been addicted and hypnotized my friends.

It is Time to be finding it:  Our Way Off Autopilot.
The Parable of the Four Autopilot Pigs
Our Way Off Autopilot:
Cross Balancing Tao
for a Mindful Self and World