Trying is Very Trying
This is a p.s. to the last post – ‘Cows do not f*ck’ about anthropomorphising. It now transpires most of the post was getting the meaning back to front!
No apology if it was part of your reading… it has led us here and to what perhaps AI can ever ‘do’ – teach us what is really worth ‘knowing’?
Came across the phrase ‘rat race’ via morning reading ahead of journaling [‘Meeting Life’ by J. Krishnamurti]. It may remind me which way round ‘anthropo-ing’ goes: rats simply move.
I do not know whether they have an awareness (but suspect not) that they are ‘racing’…
This led to musing on unlearning...
Thank you Krishnamurti for the ever-present pointing that (aside from ‘mechanical’ learning like how to fix a tap or ride a bike) learning demands not knowing.
As he states in ‘Meeting Life’ from a discussion with students in Huizen, Holland in June 1967
‘When do you learn? You learn when you know nothing.’
This, when inspected, even removes trying since trying comes from the idea that effort facilitates learning. This might be one of the most pernicious ideologies of today. [Removing trying may also come from a desire to be free from 'how' and 'why'!]
When I am trying I am full of trying… and it’s very trying!
But it can't be 'done'. Try to stop trying!!! Seeing it brings love to it.
This seeing - or perhaps more accurately hearing - appears to create space for learning to happen, although I cannot know this for sure! There is a humility or tenderness about this which has Lizzie's eyes moistening without really knowing why…
And what is then learned will likely be ‘unlearned’.
It leaves this question unanswered, arriving as a rhyming couplet:
Is learning anything more than seeing something fresh and new
without a motive or an ‘in order to’?
#effort #learning #unknowing