Seeking Knowledge of a Higher Power’s Will Without the Answers — O’Keefe

Audio Archives wishes to remind the listener that this cassette is recorded live and unedited so that it's low cost can be maintained and so that can be distributed on a timely basis. It's hard to describe the life that I have. I was, but you know from listening, if you've ever listened to me, I was born with nothing. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous with nothing, and now most days it seems that I'm granted a new gift as it says, a new gifts that tells me I'm really going somewhere where life is not a dead end not something to be mastered or endured that kind of thing now when i was in the program only about a week or so probably less i can't remember my sponsor said to me about this subject this morning he said we pray around here so you're going to have to learn how to pray and i told them what happened to be the truth at that time i said i don't pray i don t pray he said you will brother you go and like a lot of us i make this i make a difference between the practice of prayer meditation and the step they're two different things and in the beginning we all get the practice all of our sponsors say to us pray right he said to me you'll ask for help in the morning say thank you at night and that will be your prayer and there's nothing certainly nothing offensive or difficult about that plus i was not one of these hard cases i was not a self-proclaimed agnostic or atheist i didn't have that particular kind of an ego problem i have different kinds of ego problems but i didn t have the kind of ego problem that made me deny the obvious power that organizes and saves the lives of everybody in alcoholics now of course the life i was leading when i drank didn't really require me to pray you know i didn't have much to pray about when i was drinking i was only interested my inventory if i did the fourth step inventory again as i did 26 years ago it would be the same I think I had three things that interested me money, power and sex PMS power, money and sex so you don't have to worry about praying for that stuff so when he said ask for help I asked for help it didn't bother me and of course it was an interesting lesson in that i began to follow directions which was a big thing with me so anyhow i went on practicing prayer and meditation for a long time before i actually ever got to the step and by the time i got to this step because i was with a sponsor who you went through things in order and when he said you were ready not when you said you're ready So I don't know how much time, I'm sure it was more than a year before I got to the 11th step. But in the course of that year, since I had been at meetings every night, I had picked up, of course, the serenity prayer, which we've all said together already this morning. I picked up the third step prayer. I picked out the seventh step prayer, and of course, from a very, very early age, at least I knew the words of the lost prayer. So by just coming to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, by not drinking, I had found out I don't have the nerve, so I think it would kill me. But I'm thinking about it. If you like words, a lot of people in AA like words. There are more words in the 11th step than any other. There are 32 words in The Eleven Steps, if you like ways. And The Eleventh Step, like all of the steps, I have a great deal of experience with it I wouldn't talk to you if I didn't have the experience and I had the experience based on my sponsor's experience and he always said to me, the first thing you start with is the words read the words see what it says then you don't have to get misinformed it says these men and women who founded this program sought to improve their conscious contact with God as they understood him praying only for knowledge of his will and the power to carry that out. They were seekers. They were looking for something. They saw it. See, we are seekers. We do not have in our book Alcoholics Anonymous, we do not know what alcohol is. We do have a chapter that says here's the answer. We don't have that. We have a chapter that says there is a solution. But that's different than a chapter that says here's the answer. If you want the answer, maybe you can get in touch with Tammy's ex-husband. Or if you are in Louisiana, maybe Jimmy would be available. Although I understand he's very busy from time to time And I have seen these gentlemen I'm not bad mouthing them I've seen them on television And they tell me they have the answer They had it right They said this is the answer Here it is I said boy oh boy That's the answer Oral He had the answer And if Oral didn't have it His cousin Anal comes to town every once in a while, and I know he's got it. I know. See, they have the answer. We don't have the answers. We seek. We seek as we don't know what we're doing. We're just on a journey. That's what it says, right? Rarely have we seen anyone fail who has followed our path. What's a path? Path is nothing more than a way made clear by steps People who've gone before If you're walking along and you look out somewhere And you see that path You know that somebody has gone that way They've walked that way So we walk where they walk And of course if you don't know the path Never been on the path Best thing to have is somebody who knows the path Bring him along with you. He'll show you. It's a little tricky here. Goes up a little here, a little down there. Plus, he knows where the path comes out. He's had the spiritual life. It's the path that's on. We don't have any mountains to climb here. It's not a big deal. It's just a little bit of a challenge. It's got a big view. There are no mountains to claim. God does not make hard terms with those who seek him the easiest thing in the world all he wants in this is communication correct? communication our book says see to it that your relationship with him is right and great events will come to pass for you and countless others now how does forgive me if I sound like a school teacher because that's what I am how do we maintain any relationship whether it be a business relationship a social relationship a sexual relationship it's all communication, is it not? isn't it? you've got to have communication an ongoing relationship is communication see to it but your relationship with him is right and great events, great events will come to pass for you and countless others see to it your communication with him is right and so we pray and so he meditates now I had no experience whatever in meditation none, zero I'm a product as I mentioned of the Catholic school system I don't bad mouth the Catholic school system. A lot of people in AA do, I don't. They gave me a free education, nice education, good education. Very grateful to them. I'm sure that was a great trial. And in all the years when I was 19 years in that system, that I was in that system I don t think I ever heard the word meditation in a teaching situation. I may have been wrong. Maybe they tried to teach me. Maybe it was one of those days I didn't want to learn anything but i didn't hear a thing about it and i didn' know anything about it so i went to my sponsor that's what you're supposed to do and i said i have trouble this meditation business what am i supposed to he said meditate i'm telling you dealing with this guy was like dealing with the great wall of china you know I said, I just told you, I don't know how to meditate. Yeah, he said, well that's what you better meditate on because you don't have a meditation. And unless you find out how to meditate, you poor stoop, he says, you're not going to be able to do the steps. He said, you better mediate on that right away. Imagine being trying to get help from this man? Now, I'm going to tell you what I did and I also specifically instruct you not to do it. In fact, forbid you to do it. I'm a voracious reader and I was reading this book around this time, there's a book on meditation that was by a man named Kelly and Kelly improbably enough was a Quaker. I was fascinated by this book and so I found the Quaker meeting, it was about a couple of miles where I lived and I went up when I sat with the Quakers for three years. It's my kind of religion. They don't have any services, they don't any clergy. I like that kind of church. More importantly, I never did become a Quaker but I went every Sunday that I was in town for the next several years. I went specifically to learn to meditate and I did. I learned at least to center down and to be quiet and to think. The word meditation is from the Latin, most of our words are meditare, to give thought. And I would think about, as the book says, you know the book has got everything in it. It's so clear. I told him I don't know how to meditate, he opened up points it says ask him in your morning meditation what you can do for the new man who still suffers the answers will come if your own house is in order but But obviously, obviously, you cannot transmit something that you do not have. Simple enough, huh? Ask him in your morning meditation what you can do for the new man who suffers. I was an alcoholic synonymous. Oh, I was here when Jesus came through. Jesus came true in the late 60s and it was good to have him. He was here. guys were coming around with bibles to meetings going to rap about jesus he didn't stay he had to go out of town but he was here i was here when transcendental meditation came through everybody had a mantra cost two hundred dollars or something like that marvelous everybody was gathered on corner doing their mantra it was a form of meditation there's nothing wrong with it they wanted to do that I was here when the hyperglycemia epidemic struck Everybody's eating peanuts Oh, that was tough Get through the epidemic like that But all you have to do My sponsor said read the 12 and 12 He said read this stuff on meditation Well, you know, I don't have to tell you 12 and12 gives you The St. Francis prayer And it says Read this prayer over several times slowly So I read it Several times slowly It did nothing for me See, you know I'm not a heretic But let me tell you something The St. Francis prayer Is a great prayer for a saint I'm just the opposite I feel like an idiot when I read that prayer You know Let me be the channel of your peace I'd rather understand I'm not an idiot I'm the opposite I'd much rather get than give Are you kidding? I feel very bad When I read about St. Francisco correct so I had to find this other way and I'll tell you what I really came down to I learned it from a guy named Harry and I tell you he's no saint the group I was a member in New York we had a group practice of meditation. And we meditate as a group on how to have our group grow in understanding and effectiveness. And one year I spoke in Philadelphia at a thing called the Unity Breakfast there, and they had this breakfast and they brought people from all over Philadelphia to the one central place because they found with the expansion of AA they weren't traveling as much, they didn't see each other as much. They wanted to have a forum in which they would see each another. So I came back, told my group where I'd been, what I had done. About two weeks later, Harry showed up and he said he had been meditating on that subject and he thought that my group should have a unity breakfast. So we did. And the first breakfast we had, there was 125 people. It was fun. The last one was held last fall at 1,500 people. It's held twice a year. It's the biggest event they have in that area of New York State. came about because Harry meditated how he could be a more effective member of Alcoholics Anonymous what he could do for his group what he could do or the man who still suffers the answers will come your own house is in order so it says and so I believe prayer is a whole different deal I know about prayer no you can't go through the Catholic school system I don't know about prayer i knew the words i knew the form of all types of prayers i knew prayers in latin prayers in english prayers and french prayers for our intentions of our holy father the pope prayers for the bishop in the bronx we used to pray for the crops every fall we'd pray for the crops nobody was grown anything but maybe a couple other guys were growing marijuana down the street Spare the crops, Lord. We don't all sit there and pray. This step not only tells us how to meditate and how to pray, it tells us that we should pray and shouldn't meditate. It specifically says pray and meditate only, only for knowledge of God's will. For you and the power to carry that out. Only. Eliminates a lot of ridiculous prayers. Eliminate a lot prayers i used to worry a lot when i was in school i had uh i used to worry about i asked god one time to make rio de janeiro the capital of portugal well that's what i wrote down on examination you know and if rio di genero wasn't the capital portugal that nun was going to take my head off so i asked the lord to help me do that but nothing happened there not good see this praying only the way they limit our prayer here is great spiritual value because it takes us right out of that bondage of self and what we say is to this great power that started it all anyhow the same prayer that we've been saying all our lives. There's nothing new here. Thy will be done. That's the prayer we say all our lives. Thy Will Be Done, Thy Will Be Done. Show us knowledge of your will. Show me your will, I say to him. Show me you're will. Give me the power to carry it out. It's not a big deal. I'm telling you, gang, it is not a great deal. When I got to this part of the program he explained to me something is like a gift he says program of alcoholics and I was like a gift that you give to a very small baby very small infant if you have any familiarity with this I'm sure you do you give a kid present the kid will very often mistake the wrapping paper for the present yeah I hear about the paper he'll eat the paper take the ribbon stick in his ear he thinks you gave him paper he's happy you don't know but was he gets older then he finds out the real present is down there see down in the bottom and so when I came here you know Here I am somebody's been drunk every day for years and all of a sudden I'm not drunk anymore and I feel just great you remember that Oh God sleep and eat all of that stuff and I say to my sponsor this is it yeah he said this is not even close to it you're more so I'm going to get back by finally trained incredibly honed legal mind Oh oh god this is awful you're not even close he says we get down here he says this is it stupid this is a thing the 11th step is it next step the 12th step is really combination of two things the result of the first 11 and directions on how i am to live my life. I am to carry this message and practice these principles. The 11th step is the powerhouse of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is where the power is. This is the bottom of the package. When we come together, we, and we pray this way, power is generated. Enough power. You feel that in this room? You feel it? I feel it. Power. let me tell you something gang it didn't come in here with me power powers in this room boy oh boy see and that's the bottom of the box this is where we are now because people who are very new maybe they not able to see the value of this I know all those prayers when i spoke to you about i knew prayers for all occasions i knew press you know any way you wanted i've learned to pray a different way here i've learning to meditate a different way here too i've learnt to pray i'll tell you i'll let you have a couple of my prayers you'll seem like nice people no charge for this You want to have a good prayer? Here's a good prayer. You ready for this prayer? This is a very good prayer. Show me the way. Show me the way Show me the way How's that? Pretty good? You see, I think oft times oft times, oft times I know what I want to do You know what i mean? I know where I want To go I'm not dope I've been around I know I want To go from here To there But many many times I don't know How to get there You know What I mean I know I should Go over there I just don't Know how To get there From here So I say Show me the way Show me The way you want me to do your will i want to do your will then show me the way show me here's a good prayer here's the best prayer you could ever have this is it any theologians in here listen to me this is it here's what i'm going to do here's the prayer are you ready for this prayer here it is in its entirety ready thank Thank you, thank you, that's it brothers, that is the prayer. I see him, he's up there, he comes into the office every morning as you expect he would and he says to the guy, well what's up, I said well 15 million guys want jobs, 20 million guys want cars. They all want their wives taken away. And there's one guy down in Miami that keeps saying, thank you. And God says, give him anything he wants. Don't you remember that child you had, the one who said thank you all the time? Remember that kid? I have seven kids. One of them says thank you all the times. She got a little extra, I think. You know, I sort of load her up a little bit. The others will say, ah, thanks, Pop. That's a nice bike. Thanks, Pop, you're okay. Not this kid. Oh, look at this. Oh-oh, what a daddy. My daddy, this bike. Can I give a little extract? Maybe you should have a coat and you could ride your bike. Isn't that a great prayer? Just thank you, that's all. And why not? Why not? Every one of us. All day long, all night long. Thank you, thank you. Are you kidding me? Here's a form of meditation I use. Think back right now, think back. Six months before you came to Alcoholics Anonymous, think about it. Right now, will you live how you thought, the kind of a life you were leading, who you knew, what was important. Just right now. Now think about the last six months. Thank you. Right? Thank you, thank you. There's nothing to this there's nothing to this. Pray only, only. The Twelve and Twelve tells us that any experienced AA, and I'm an experienced AA. I hate this humility shit. Why pussyfoot around about this stuff. Any experienced AA will tell how his affairs have taken remarkable and unexpected turns for the better as he tried to improve his conscious contact with God. He will also report that out of every season of grief or suffering when the hand of God seemed heavy or even unjust. New lessons were living, new lessons for living were learned, new resources of courage were uncovered. Finally inescapably the conviction came that God does move in a mysterious way his wonders to perform and I am an experienced they aim. And I'm here to tell you, brothers, my life has become so simple because I learned the basic thing here to follow the instructions, to meditate and to pray only for knowledge of God's will for me and the power to carry that out. You know, I never can tell how it was with anybody except me. But it always seemed to me – I don't know if – I've heard this from other people but I don' t know if you've had this experience, I've had it – bothered me for a long time – and that was this. I had a feeling that I didn't belong, you know what I mean? i knew at a very early age i just knew it nobody had to tell me this i knew i was in the wrong family i knew that i didn't belong with those people well i didn my i went to those schools believe me there was nothing wrong with the schools i just didn't belong there i spent a lifetime on the outside looking in and what was unusual about it in my case was that I was successful. You know what I mean? I didn't feel at home in those schools. I was the best student they ever had. I was president of every class I was ever in. I was just successful and I never felt like I belonged there. And then when I got all grown up and working and all that stuff, I'm in some saloon on 2nd Avenue in Manhattan and it's 4 o'clock in the morning The guy next to me is spitting on my shoe, and I'm thinking to myself, I don't think I belong here. You know, what the hell am I doing? I'm a law professor. What am I going here at 4 o'clock in the morning with this asshole pissing on my shoe here? This may not be it either, see, in my search for the eternal truth. Now, I had a perfectly lovely home up there with all of the suburban junk that went with it. You know, the panel den and the gaga goo-goo and the ga-ga and all that. But I didn't want to go up there because I didn''t feel at home up there. I didn' t feel at hom over here. I had this dream job. It embarrasses me to tell people when I work what I do. I work six hours a week, two weeks a year. full-time. I was fired for non-performance. Those rotten bastards. And I had tenure, yeah. So anyhow, I just never felt like I, you know? It bothered me, it really bothered me. I always on the outside look at it piss me off then I came around here and I learned something from you all and I learned how to pray listen to what it said listen to other scissors the very last paragraph people say what's the point here's the point perhaps one is the greatest rewards of meditation and prayer is the sense of belonging that comes to us. We no longer live in a completely hostile world. We are no longer lost and frightened and purposeless. The moment we catch even a glimpse of God's will, the moment we begin to see truth, justice and love as the real and eternal things in life, we are no longer deeply disturbed by all the seeming evidence to the contrary that surrounds us in purely human affairs. We know that God watches over us. We know that when we turn to him, all will be well with us here and hereafter. Now I'm here to tell you that that sense of belonging has come to me. I don't know when it came but it came to me, you know what I mean? It isn't so much, let's face it, such a privilege to be asked to come here and talk at your particular convention and then to be asked to talk twice my god even if it's killing me but you know that's a great honor and i accept that you know i'm used to it and i try to be nice about let me tell you the real truth so maybe you don't understand what's going on here let me tell you something gang i belong here how's that it's okay for me to be here i belong i'm a member why can't i be here you don't have to ask me i can come if i want i belong with you that's a good feeling i've had that feeling now for many many many years and no matter where i go there it is i belong it's okay for me to come in i don't have to explain anything to you if i want to sit up here and blubber i can blub it for I don't have to tell you anything about it. You know how I feel. It's a great sense of belonging, that at last there is some place where it's okay to be with all the shortcomings, with all character defects, with all of selfishness and self-aggrandizement and all of the self-will and all the rest of it. It's okay to be here, safe at last. And I'll tell you something else, Gary. I almost missed it by that much. Do you understand? I could have missed this thing by that. Brother, if it weren't for that sponsor and that group group, but I would have missed it. My brother Billy missed it." Billy was a smart guy. He never finished high school, but he was a small guy. Alcoholism was so strong he killed my brother Billy, he didn't even have it. Five years before he died, he was in my house I said, Billy, you want to go with me to an AA meeting? He said, I'm not an alcoholic. You are an alcoholic, he said. You've always been weird. Okay, he's not an alcoholic. Now, my brother's a smart guy. Then he died. They sent me the death certificate. Cause of death, alcoholism. Killed my brother. He didn't have it. That's a powerful disease. That's as easy as going around killing people that don't have it. Don't turn your back on that stuff. The practice of prayer, the practice of meditation has been with us, you know, as lawyers say, since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. It's always been, ever since we, you and I, have tried to establish some type of communication with whatever the power is that we seek to find. We've always had this, and the conventional ways have been the prayer, the speaking, and the meditating, the listening. And the results have always been personal results. You know? I can tell you that I have had the most wonderful experience, meditate. Truly. And not a big deal, not a bit deal. Just seeing how I could help my group be a more effective group, how I can be a better member of AA maybe. Not such a pain in the ass, you know? Don't have to run every goddamn thing. Lay off, let some of the new people do, that kind It's all personal. It comes personally to us. But you cannot question the results, right? You cannot question their results and here we are, as Fern said on a Sunday morning, we're in Toronto, great province of Ontario. What the hell are we doing here? What is this power that brought you and brought me into this room, this one? Why do I feel 100% better now than I did when I started talking up here? I mean what the hell is going on here? I was close to death. Yeah, easy for you, you bastards. I was close at that. And now I feel just peachy keen. Why is that? I don't know. What is it? It's power. Obviously it's power, it's power. You want to put a definition on the power? All right, have it. I have a poem I like. Imagine that. And it's in A.A. Comes of Age. You didn't know that, did we got poetry books huh if I can find it and I learned this poem when I was in high school because the author of this poem is a Catholic and that's the schools I was going to not only that he was an alcoholic and a drug addict mm-mm-mm Did I say the word? Oh Heavenly Ned, what next? And he wrote a poem About his relationship with God He was a failed cleric this is in the 17th century he was a failed cleric he had proceeded on to holy orders as did a lot of people but he had failed he got through some of the minor orders he couldn't get through so he's boozer and he was an opium addict and he went just where you and I went he went right there and he wrote this poem which describes his relationship with God And in poetic imagery He pictures God Not in the usual way But he pictures God As an enormous dog A hound Of large proportion And he calls his poem The Hound of Heaven His name was Francis Francis Thompson And this is what Francis said About God and see, maybe he speaks well I know he speaks for me listen I fled him down the nights and down the days I fled him down the arches of the years I fled him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind and in the midst of tears I hid from him, but with unhurrying chase and unperturbed pace, deliberate speed, majestic instancy, their beat and a voice beat more instant than those feet. All things betray thee who betray me. He has God as this hound that just keeps following him, following him. And everywhere he turns he comes into a confrontation with his hound. And the hound says to him here when it speaks to him, all things betray thee who betray me. Then later on, it's much too long for me to read the whole thing. But listen to this, when he really gets, he's getting to be sort of friendly with God now. He's been a while, whoa. God says to poor old Francis, human love needs human meriting. How have you merited? Of all man's clotted clay, you the dingiest clot. You know not How little worthy you are Of any love at all Who will you find To love you Only me Only me Who else could love us Huh They all gave up on me right They all give up on you too God does not give up ever, ever, ever. Listen to this. This is what he tells Francis. This is why he told me. He says everything I took from you, and he took a lot. I took not for your harm, but you might seek it in my arms. Everything your child's mistake thinks is lost i have stored for thee at home come take my hand come home that's what it says and finally he gets to francis and he says to him oh find this blindest weakest I am he who you sickest and that's what you and I are about gang seeking seeking only seeking perhaps never finding but there There is joy in our journey. There is method in our program that we come together and we join together and we produce this power that is unique throughout the world. The power of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous has never been duplicated throughout the world and never can be or will be by anybody or any institution under any circumstances. And that's it, because I've seen it. I'm not talking to you about something I hope, something I dream. I have seen it, and that's why I tell you my life is a prayer and most days are song. days or so. I have been for a long time. Well, you know, when you get fired as a tenured professor of law, you're not supposed to be hired again. I'm going to end this by telling you a little story. It's personal. Personal story. 1962, I got fired as the tenured professor of law you're not supposed to be hired again those are rules i knew the rules once you have a tenured job you lose it for fault no teacher your finished teaching i knew that so i'm finished teaching how are you i'll do something else let me show you and finally you know 65 i finally began to get sober and uh around uh i lose track of the years maybe 74 75 something like that i got a phone call one day from a presiding justice in new york and he says you know they're starting a law school up where you are in white plains new yor he said they want me to go on their board of trustees i can't do that i'm too busy why don't Why don't you go on it for me? You used to be a teacher, didn't you?" And I said, yeah, I used to a teacher. I saw that dean of that law school and I said George Hopkins wants me to be on your board for him in his play. And he said fine, come on over. So about a year later this dean said to me, why don't come teach here, you seem like you're interested in teaching. I said I am. He said but you know I had a little difficulty with Fordham. Fordham Law School, big law school. Oh, he said, I know about that. He said, but that's a long time ago. And this is only part-time, you know, you're not going to be full-time. Oh, I said, yeah, well, that's good. So now I go over there and I start teaching. And another few years go by. Meantime, I've made all my amends at the Fordham University School of Law, big school. And I've done what I'm supposed to do down there. and sometimes some people find me amusing so they used to let me be the master of ceremonies at their annual alumni thing and I would make feeble attempts at legal humor pretty desperate, eh? And so this year I'm going through that and I'm introducing everybody I just finished having dinner with the dean of the law school he was sitting next to me We chatted about nothing, and he stands up. I introduce him. He stands up, and very decanal. He's going through all this stuff. And then he looks out at this crowd, and he says, and the last thing I'm going to do, I'll tell you about, is I'm gonna reappoint Professor O'Keefe to the law school faculty. Never said a word to me. Holy shit. And the guy that fired me is sitting down here in there. Then we all went back to his house that night. We were friends. We're friends, we're friends. But I gave it to Isaiah. So it's part-time, you know? Part-time. I'm teaching two law part-time. Then in 1984, one of the teachers came up to me, a full-time teacher, and he said, you know, I've just been made dean of a brand new law school in Florida. How would you like to go full- time and come to Florida to teach? Full-time? I said, I don't think I can, you know. A lot of trouble way back in the 60s. We caught him. Oh no, he said. I called. He you're all set. He said, you've been rehabilitated. So down I go. Now I'm a full-time teacher, teaching a long time. Six hours a week, right? Thirty-six weeks a year. And I was there about a year and I get a letter from Fordham Law School and it's from the dean. He says, come to my attention that one of your children is graduating here next June. This letter was like in March, and he said we think you better come up here and hand her her law degree in Lincoln Center when they graduate. Give it to a person. What the hell is that? Huh? What is that I'm a disgrace I can't be on that faculty I cancel things like that I'm bummed, I'm drunk Two months ago This is March February Got a call I'd read something in the paper Somebody had died I got a call And they said you see professor died I said yeah it's too bad next man?" And he said, yes well I'd like you to be a visiting professor here this summer. Visiting full time. Come back home. I'll tell you Gary, I never once asked for that. I never As for that, my sponsor never told me I would get that. It's not even fair. It's got in our book that I'm going to get this. I don't deserve this. And if I get it, somebody like me gets it. What are nice people like you going to do? So that's my story. That's my side. I don't know where this power ends. I don't where it begins. I'm just so ever grateful it was here when I came here. Thank you so much.