I am new to this forum, and I am currently reading through the many posts in this section, (The Work), but I have not finished yet. It appears to be often repeated that regular posting is not just encouraged, but in fact required for positive effects to take place. Towards this end, I wanted to post an observation which has been floating around in me for some time and which struck home again today.
It may be that this thought has been covered before, so if I am treading old ground, I apologize.
This post is also rather longer than I'd anticipated, so I thank those in advance who are patient enough to read through it. I am also asking at the end for readers to invest some energy in dissecting it.
Differing learning styles.
While going through the various definitions and their explanations of the Gurdjieff method, I found myself recognizing something I have encountered before.
What struck me was that what I was reading reminded me a great deal of the grammar lessons I had received while moving through the school system. Nouns, pronouns, adjectives and the various rules for how they all fit together to form functional sentences. The mathematics of how that language worked.
Gurdjieff appears to have reduced The Work into just such a set of clinically reduced systems.
Such systems make a lot of sense. --To understand a language, for instance, in a scientific way, it is necessary to break it down into observable patterns and determine how they interact with one another. With enough observable repetitions of a given interaction, one may ascribe a name or a "Rule" to that type of interaction. After enough study, the entire language may be reduced to a reliable set of rules which can then be used in a clinical manner to communicate what is happening within any given instance of the Language. When a piece of language is confused or feels wrong, but the speaker/writer cannot immediately determine what the problem is, the set of rules may be referred to in order to work out what the problem is.
In theory, it is rational to assume that one who wishes to learn a new language do so by studying the rules of that language.
This assumption, however, does not bear out in practice. There is a missing component.
In every language class, it is well understood that to properly learn how to speak a language, one must engage in using that language with other speakers. The objective is for the language to become an automatic, unconscious feature of the individual using it. Like learning how to walk, most human 'walkers' cannot summon the conscious intellectual resources necessary to instruct each individual muscle required to take steps. (Or at least, I don't remember doing this when I was small.) The same is true for language; to be useful, the user cannot hope to function effectively by consciously assembling the rules of that language in his or her mind to construct sentences.
You can probably see where I'm going here. . .
When I was growing up, I found that I had tremendous difficulty in learning and memorizing the precise components and specifically named rules of the English and French languages. They baffled me, my mind resisted it, perhaps more so than other students. It drove me mad with a kind of internal rebellion and frustration. Before I was old enough to recognize that teachers were not always right, I found myself realizing that there was something different about me. --I knew I was a smart kid; I had the ability to function effectively within and understand the workings of the world around me which appeared to be, in most cases, in advance of most of the other children. My interests and hobbies often involved complex activities. The sciences interested me greatly, and I eagerly absorbed my father's teachings, (he was an electrical engineer with many other areas of knowledge). I built from both construction toys and raw materials creations which other children seemed astonished by. However, while I dug into these fields with enormous enthusiasm, whenever I encountered the Rules for any given field, I found that my brain resisted them with force.
I found school to be very difficult, and I failed math courses and did poorly in language classes whenever it came to the scientific specifics of words. Science was a heart-break; for all my love of science classes, by the time I reached mid-way through highschool, I found that advancing in my favorite classes, (Electronics, Physics and Chemistry) became impossible when I butted up against the immutable walls presented by the hard maths required beyond certain levels.
--Curiously, unlike with the language classes, in the sciences, the hard and unchanging laws of force and motion, made a lot of sense. When working entirely in the theoretical world of frictionless Newtonian space, I found I was able to solve problems with ease. But in the real world. . . In electronics class, in the marvelous realm of AC electricity from which Tesla created wonders, I was a plodding Edison able only the muster a hobbyist's understanding of the DC circuit. And I was in LOVE with these courses! I would have, with great joy, become a scientist if I'd had the capacity.
I worked with a tutor to help me through some of the more complex forms of math, but little progress was made. To my great shame, I failed tests, exams and eventually whole courses. I barely managed to graduate from high school due to my horrible math scores.
In the end, I moved into the arts, where the barriers simply didn't exist, and I excelled. I can paint, draw and write with ease, and have earned a living at it; learning those skills took a lot of work, but it was work which made sense and where progress, unlike in the sciences, resulted from my repeated application of effort.
Anyway. . , to aim this back towards the point. . .
I failed French. The clinical aspect of it eluded me. But when I was trouping around in France, within a month, I found I had picked up a lot of the language; I could feel it igniting inside me. Two months later, on the plane ride home, I was able to chat in broken French with the couple sitting beside me. It felt like a laugh bubbling inside me as I learned it. It was fun and it was easy! (Though, don't ask me to repeat anything now; that was many years ago and I have forgotten it all.)
In English class, I was fortunate. That class I passed. --The clinical rules were left behind years before I'd entered high school; it was assumed that students had picked up the basics, (I had not), and so in later years we focused on reading books and writing and thinking. This was enormously fun, and I flew through that stuff with high marks.
Now, when looking over the Gurdjieff system, I see it all again. Systems and rules and, (to me), excruciatingly baffling ways to describe reality.
I seem to learn by allowing my automatic elements to assemble effective, intuitive systems which I then use to navigate and affect reality. I also have a deep knowing that I can also use this style of learning can be used to advance up through the various levels of awareness. --Or to use some of the terminology, to move from the GENERAL LAW toward the LAW OF EXCEPTION. (The definitions for which have already escaped me.)
Now, here's the problem!
It is entirely possible that I am fooling myself; that this "deep knowing" is in fact a lie the predator is insisting upon. The thing is, I really do believe what I have written here.
I would be grateful, if those present and patient enough, would do me the favor of putting this little treatise without mercy through the proverbial crucible to see what comes out the other end.
Thank-you!
It may be that this thought has been covered before, so if I am treading old ground, I apologize.
This post is also rather longer than I'd anticipated, so I thank those in advance who are patient enough to read through it. I am also asking at the end for readers to invest some energy in dissecting it.
Differing learning styles.
While going through the various definitions and their explanations of the Gurdjieff method, I found myself recognizing something I have encountered before.
What struck me was that what I was reading reminded me a great deal of the grammar lessons I had received while moving through the school system. Nouns, pronouns, adjectives and the various rules for how they all fit together to form functional sentences. The mathematics of how that language worked.
Gurdjieff appears to have reduced The Work into just such a set of clinically reduced systems.
Such systems make a lot of sense. --To understand a language, for instance, in a scientific way, it is necessary to break it down into observable patterns and determine how they interact with one another. With enough observable repetitions of a given interaction, one may ascribe a name or a "Rule" to that type of interaction. After enough study, the entire language may be reduced to a reliable set of rules which can then be used in a clinical manner to communicate what is happening within any given instance of the Language. When a piece of language is confused or feels wrong, but the speaker/writer cannot immediately determine what the problem is, the set of rules may be referred to in order to work out what the problem is.
In theory, it is rational to assume that one who wishes to learn a new language do so by studying the rules of that language.
This assumption, however, does not bear out in practice. There is a missing component.
In every language class, it is well understood that to properly learn how to speak a language, one must engage in using that language with other speakers. The objective is for the language to become an automatic, unconscious feature of the individual using it. Like learning how to walk, most human 'walkers' cannot summon the conscious intellectual resources necessary to instruct each individual muscle required to take steps. (Or at least, I don't remember doing this when I was small.) The same is true for language; to be useful, the user cannot hope to function effectively by consciously assembling the rules of that language in his or her mind to construct sentences.
You can probably see where I'm going here. . .
When I was growing up, I found that I had tremendous difficulty in learning and memorizing the precise components and specifically named rules of the English and French languages. They baffled me, my mind resisted it, perhaps more so than other students. It drove me mad with a kind of internal rebellion and frustration. Before I was old enough to recognize that teachers were not always right, I found myself realizing that there was something different about me. --I knew I was a smart kid; I had the ability to function effectively within and understand the workings of the world around me which appeared to be, in most cases, in advance of most of the other children. My interests and hobbies often involved complex activities. The sciences interested me greatly, and I eagerly absorbed my father's teachings, (he was an electrical engineer with many other areas of knowledge). I built from both construction toys and raw materials creations which other children seemed astonished by. However, while I dug into these fields with enormous enthusiasm, whenever I encountered the Rules for any given field, I found that my brain resisted them with force.
I found school to be very difficult, and I failed math courses and did poorly in language classes whenever it came to the scientific specifics of words. Science was a heart-break; for all my love of science classes, by the time I reached mid-way through highschool, I found that advancing in my favorite classes, (Electronics, Physics and Chemistry) became impossible when I butted up against the immutable walls presented by the hard maths required beyond certain levels.
--Curiously, unlike with the language classes, in the sciences, the hard and unchanging laws of force and motion, made a lot of sense. When working entirely in the theoretical world of frictionless Newtonian space, I found I was able to solve problems with ease. But in the real world. . . In electronics class, in the marvelous realm of AC electricity from which Tesla created wonders, I was a plodding Edison able only the muster a hobbyist's understanding of the DC circuit. And I was in LOVE with these courses! I would have, with great joy, become a scientist if I'd had the capacity.
I worked with a tutor to help me through some of the more complex forms of math, but little progress was made. To my great shame, I failed tests, exams and eventually whole courses. I barely managed to graduate from high school due to my horrible math scores.
In the end, I moved into the arts, where the barriers simply didn't exist, and I excelled. I can paint, draw and write with ease, and have earned a living at it; learning those skills took a lot of work, but it was work which made sense and where progress, unlike in the sciences, resulted from my repeated application of effort.
Anyway. . , to aim this back towards the point. . .
I failed French. The clinical aspect of it eluded me. But when I was trouping around in France, within a month, I found I had picked up a lot of the language; I could feel it igniting inside me. Two months later, on the plane ride home, I was able to chat in broken French with the couple sitting beside me. It felt like a laugh bubbling inside me as I learned it. It was fun and it was easy! (Though, don't ask me to repeat anything now; that was many years ago and I have forgotten it all.)
In English class, I was fortunate. That class I passed. --The clinical rules were left behind years before I'd entered high school; it was assumed that students had picked up the basics, (I had not), and so in later years we focused on reading books and writing and thinking. This was enormously fun, and I flew through that stuff with high marks.
Now, when looking over the Gurdjieff system, I see it all again. Systems and rules and, (to me), excruciatingly baffling ways to describe reality.
I seem to learn by allowing my automatic elements to assemble effective, intuitive systems which I then use to navigate and affect reality. I also have a deep knowing that I can also use this style of learning can be used to advance up through the various levels of awareness. --Or to use some of the terminology, to move from the GENERAL LAW toward the LAW OF EXCEPTION. (The definitions for which have already escaped me.)
Now, here's the problem!
It is entirely possible that I am fooling myself; that this "deep knowing" is in fact a lie the predator is insisting upon. The thing is, I really do believe what I have written here.
I would be grateful, if those present and patient enough, would do me the favor of putting this little treatise without mercy through the proverbial crucible to see what comes out the other end.
Thank-you!
