In the movie Being There, a gardener called Chance is mistaken by the Washington establishment for a political or business guru, Chauncey Gardiner. Chance has been raised in such a way that his notion of the real world is drawn solely from TV programs. When he has to leave the house in which he has spent most of his life, therefore, he believes that the scenes he encounters in that real world can be changed with a flick of the remote control that he carries around with him still.

But Chance's simple observations -- "I like to watch," "All is well, and will be well, in the garden" -- are taken by the important and influential people he meets as profoundly significant statements. By the end of the movie, it seems possible that Chauncey Gardiner may become the next President of the United States.

Steps 10, 11 and 12, if practiced daily, will eventually free us of the notion that there are people like Chauncey Gardiner who have all the answers for us in neat little aphorisms. The fact is that we are free to work out our own salvation "in fear and trembling" without any help from so-called experts in Program. We come to see that these people are sometimes right and sometimes wrong; anything that is helpful to us is really only said by chance.