Classroom Talk
Winter 2002 Archive
Yes, there is both "wise" and "foolish" speaking up. Posted by John on March 14, 2002 at 17:16:42:
In Reply to: Re: The emergence of . . . "the hotbench." ;-) posted by Pauline on March 13, 2002 at 23:10:25:
What a beautiful posting, Pauline! It's all rather simple, isn't it? It seems to speak up for itself. Living with your Father's unpredictable temper
tantrums in your space when you were a child . . . . . wouldn't have been very conducive to growing up to be a person who easily *speaks up* as an
adult now, would it? You had reasons to learn to suppress speaking up. There was *nothing* foolish about that, at the time.
Come to think of it, it seems to be true about you that when you do speak up around here, you tend to say "as little as possible" on many occasions.
You are "very quiet" about speaking up most of the time.
But, you're a grown up Kiddee now! You aren't that helpless little girl that you once were back then! You *can* learn to bring speaking up back into a
functioning and flourishing place in your adult life, if you'd like to.
Maybe it's been this tendancy to be so sparing of words that has contributed to your being such a great author of your own "one-liners," by the way.
You *have* learned to make the most of the few words that you allow you to say. I've commented about these great teaching one-liners of yours
around here a number of times over the semesters in the past. That seems to be a special personal talent of yours. And you seem to have a special
appreciation, too, for great one-liners in the lists of brief wise teachings of other people that you share, and even the jokes that you recite! In fact, I
can say that you pack a whole lot of meaning and quality into the little that you do say when you speak up.
I agree with you that these Family members who have been close to you for years now are not very good people for you to be practicing speaking up
with. Certainly, it's better to say nothing with your sister going through chemotherapy. I'm awful sorry to hear about that. If she has her own
reasons or beliefs for feeling unrealistically optimistic, I wouldn't coach speaking up and taking that away from her, of course! In fact, I'd coach being *
insincere* with her on purpose about that, and *supporting* her hopes for the best.
Gurdjieff spoke of "wise sincerity" and "foolish sincerity." He said it would be foolish to be sincere about things that other people will only attack you
with. And it would be foolish sincerity to take away the straws that suffering people are grasping at. So we cannot say that being sincere is *always*
the way to go.
Likewise, with these other members of your Family that you mention. It wouldn't be wise to keep trying to force them to see the realities of their
fantasies about the healthiness/unhealthiness of the things that all of you have seen going down among you when you were growing up as children.
>I find it very hard to communicate with them on any meaningful level because we are basically coming from very different premises.
I can empathize with that with my own Family, of course. Very, very few of us have come out of Families that were not dysfunctional in some major
ways when we were children—ways that had profound effects on each one of us—as demonstrated by the most painful personality roles that all of
our parents have played. We grow up then, and *out*, and we grow in our own different directions. Lamentable, perhaps, that so many Families
grow apart, but that seems to be the way of things for so many of us.
>If I want to have any kind of relationship with them I have to pretend I am the same. I have to pretend I came from reasonably, healthy parents, who did the best they could !!!
I understand. And I seem to sense a little anger here, too. (Maybe a lot.) I say it is okay to lie to them that way, "shine it on" (i.e. act like everything
is normal) when you have to be around them. And keep your own counsel about what it is that can be done in more healthy ways about those
historical Family traumas.
But I still say that all of our parents—sleeping people that they are, with their own destructive conditioned ego-driven personalities—*did* do the best
they could, so to speak. As bad as their behavior was—and as angry as we may be about it—lacking the tools and specialized training to see their
Selves as you can see that now, what else could they do but go on and on being stuck in their sleep, repeating their own habitual wounding ways over
and over again? They didn't know of any way to change. Some of us will even be able to forgive our parents in our lifetimes, understanding that.
But that forgiveness doesn't come easy!!!
Perhaps hanging around with those Family members is one of those situations that is "always going wrong" (i.e. where anger keeps waving its flag),
and where "dive for the space" might fairly come into play. Whatever extent you have to deal with them, try to do so peacefully, of course, without
stinging them. Yet, it isn't as though you are "supposed to be" close pals with any of them. Instead of seeking to have relationships with these
people—with whom the possibilities for sincere relationship seem so remote—maybe you should look for the warmer relationships in your life with
other people than these.
If a person feels like he or she is being too much alone, one practical way of approaching that would be to start following some new and different trails
for a change—different than the trails one has become routinely "stuck in." Change the mix for a change. Practice being with some other people
instead.
The best relationships, after all, will turn out to be with those people that *you feel drawn to*, naturally, the people that you feel you'd like to be
friends with spontaneously and with some excitement, people with whom you feel sincerely motivated, inwardly, to say to them: "I'd like to get to
know you."
It doesn't sound like you have that kind of spontaneous motivation with these Family members that you have mentioned. Friendship and
companionship happen spontaneously in their own natural ways. We can't have control over that phenomenon, even with good intentions. It can't be
forced for convention's sake. Sometimes people think they *should* be close with someone in particular. But . . . that's the guilt-word, "should." And,
in the real world, sometimes harmonious relating happens with some of our siblings, and sometimes it doesn't. None of us can realistically say:
"Because that person is my sibling we are cut out to be close friends together." In the real world, it's either so, or it isn't.
Usually a person has to look outside their Family to find the companionship they deserve, the companionship that fulfills their wishes for warm
company in this life. In other words, maybe it would be good to get out more to places, go to places where things are going on that sound interesting
to you, and actively create the opportunities to meet other men and women to size-up as potential friends and companions. And when you do spot
someone that looks promising that way, all you have to do is (ta-dah!!!) *speak up*, and just say: "I'd like to get to know you." (I can coach you more
on this, if you'd like.)
And the more you learn to be comfortable practicing speaking up around here in our class, the easier it will become for you to speak up like that on
any trail that you might follow outside of class in search of spontaneously compatible friends.
>I will respond in a more sequential fashion soon.
This response was already as sequential as could be! You're doin' fine, good Woman. You're doin' fine!
Coach
More to come, around the hotbench. I'm taking my time, Kiddees. Please bear with me.
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