From: Emma
To: Gerry
Date: September 15, 2009
Dear Gerry,
Hello! I hope you had
a good couple of weeks. I met with the
coach! It’s a lot of information and
assignments, a bit overwhelming, but I am feeling happy! The main thing that is great about this coach
is the feeling that someone is on my side and truly believes that I can do
it. (I know YOU do also, of
course!) He brought a lot of enthusiasm
to the situation, and he has every faith that this is a doable goal. He gave me lots of tasks to do to help make
this writing career REAL instead of just an abstract dream. For example, I am going through my old
journals, notes, and even scraps of paper to try to pinpoint marketable
topics. I am trying to research about
other people who are writing and speaking on these same topics to see who is
similar to me. And I am finding out
about who pays for writing and how. It
is still too early to really report on this project yet. I just wanted to let you know that it is
underway, and I’ll keep you informed.
Emma
From: Gerry
To: Emma
Date: September 17, 2009
Dear Emma,
This is just great.
It sounds very exciting. I like
how the coach is having you go back over your own writings and notes and
identify for yourself what topics to cover.
It sounds like you are researching both externally and within yourself
in order to find a connection between the two, and thereby see how your own
gifts and contributions can move into the real world where others can access
and appreciate them. Moving the water
from the brackish lake into the form of frost-pictures to be appreciated by
all!
As you go through this process, the most important thing is
to listen to your intuition. I think
there is a very real danger, when one is trying to fit one’s talents to the
outside world, that that outside world will drown out the inner voice. Sometimes, when one is looking at others who
are in one’s same field, the specter of comparison or emulation can come
up. Don’t follow that siren call. I remember when I was writing my first book,
I was very careful to actually NOT read any other books because I was worried
about being swayed by the author’s style.
I needed complete radio silence in order to just find my own voice. So I am not saying that you should do exactly
that, but just be aware.
In his essay “Self-Reliance,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote,
“When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known
or accustomed way; you shall not discern the foot-prints of any other; you
shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name;--the way, the
thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. It shall exclude example
and experience.”
So I will leave you by repeating: Listen to your
intuition. Yes, you can gain a lot from
examining the works and ideas of others, but the final decider is YOU. You are the filter and the ultimate source of
wisdom for yourself. Intuition is the
mind’s way of making sense of the incredibly complex, which is what the most
profound insights of course are.
Until next time!
Gerry
From: Emma
To: Gerry
Date: September 19, 2009
Thank you!! I feel
very supported by you in this endeavor about working with the marketing coach
to make this all REAL. And I also
appreciate your thoughts about how I need to not be pulled off from my own North
Star to follow any other writer’s style, method, etc. I just have one clarifying question for
you. Can you say more about your very
last sentence: “Intuition is the mind’s way of making sense of the incredibly
complex, which is what the most profound insights of course are.” I don’t quite get it. Isn’t intuition just the inner voice,
speaking from within a person?
Best,
Emma
From: Gerry
To: Emma
Date: September 27, 2009
Dear Emma,
Your questions are very helpful to me, too, as they assist
me in clarifying my own thoughts and how to express them. I took some time over the last week to
reflect on my statement that “intuition is the mind’s way of making sense of
the incredibly complex.” Here are my
further thoughts on that topic:
The word “intuition” stirs up many connotations, running the
gamut from deep wisdom to poppycock. In
matters where hard proof is required, intuition is usually seen as inadequate,
yet intuition can also show us truths inaccessible by other, more logical,
means.
I think of intuition as the wise inner voice which gives you
a piece of knowledge even if you don’t know for sure where that knowledge came
from. Of course, it is important to be
able to distinguish between true intuition and just “jumping to conclusions” or
relying on bias or narrow-minded prejudices or dogma. Just because an idea jumps to your mind
quickly doesn’t mean it is wise or right.
But how to tell the difference?
Well, I guess it is different for every person. As for me, I can just tell in my gut. I know that is hard to quantify or
understand! An intuition feels to me
like a deep knowing, often an epiphany, a new way of looking at things. In the book The Gift of Fear, Gavin deBecker
describes the importance of following our intuition when we detect a feeling of
fear because often we feel that sense of wrongness when we have perceived
something dangerous, but subconsciously.
This same intuition can tell us of more than just danger in our
environment, though. It can also be a
way of knowing things when the steps toward that knowing are too complex to
follow and understand explicitly. When you feel a thought in your heart, that
is intuition.
I remember when I was in college at Swarthmore, and I
considered majoring in psychology. I
took an introductory class but never stuck with it. I found myself too frustrated by the various
experiments we studied and how the field seemed to assume that the only way to
understand human behavior was through controlled experiments. I found myself often talking back to those
researchers (in my head), arguing with them that they were just researching
things that were actually better understood with common sense, with…
intuition. I felt like they were trying
to look at human behavior just using rigid simplistic formulas and trying to
put a stranglehold on my own thought process.
Looking back on it now, I realize that I probably overreacted and made
some assumptions myself. The experiments
were never meant to be interpreted so literally. I understand now that psychology and other
social sciences really just provide lenses for using one’s common sense and
intuition. Yet I had the idea that
common sense had to take a back seat to such more scientific explicit thinking
in such fields. At any rate, it just
didn’t work for me, with the way I thought at that time, so I didn’t continue
in that field.
Ah, I seem to be talking all around the topic, but let me
try to narrow it down again. The world
is incredibly complex. The world of
ideas is similarly complex. And we
humans have developed an inner way of perceiving, processing, and concluding
that works above and beyond conscious thought.
How could we keep up with such complexity in our environment and our
lives without a similar internal complexity?
And so when you have a sudden “a-ha,” an epiphany, where does that come
from? We generally say that the idea
just came through us without our conscious will. Many would say it was even divine
inspiration. Yet I believe that these
realizations come from an inner “computer” that is too complex for us to truly
understand. And so it seems that the
idea just popped into mind out of nowhere.
Yet it actually came from a much better place than nowhere! It came from… the unknowable infinite
marvelous chaos that we all share, which underlies all things and permeates our
lives and our deep sense of knowing… to use a technical term, haha. Maybe… call it the Force? So you can see that I consider intuition to
be intensely valuable and worthy of awe.
When people look down on the concept of intuition, saying, “Oh, that has
no proof,” I feel so sorry for them in a way, that they just don’t understand
something so essential to truly being alive and aware as a participant on this
planet. We contain immense wisdom if we
are only willing to look within and listen. (Of course, some arguments really do require objective proof, but I am not speaking about those here.)
So, I know I jumped into a much deeper and more spiritual
realm than you were asking about when you asked what it means to say “Intuition
is complexity.” And yet, I feel that so
many questions and discussions really do lead to the spiritual when followed
and examined long enough. To use my image
again about a tangled skein of yarn, you pick one piece and follow it, and it
leads into the great unknown, which is the best most exciting place there
is. I guess this is how I write, now
that I think about it. Pick one end of the yarn and follow it. Into the unknown. Into your own deeper knowing. Into the connections with
other authors, readers, thinkers. Into
the past and into the future.
All the best,
Gerry
From: Emma
To: Gerry
Date: September 29, 2009
Dear Gerry,
Wow! I really
appreciate this long explanation of intuition.
It fits very well with how I see writing as drawing from an infinite
well. I guess that is the same thing as
what you mean by pulling on the skein of yarn.
I am so grateful, really, that I have this ability to write. I don’t mean just as a talented writer, but
really, I am grateful to possess the ability to read and write, to be
literate. I put my thoughts into
complete phrases and sentences. I can
spell. I can organize my thoughts into
paragraphs and essays and… well, you have seen them! And in my work at McBride College, I can see
that so many people cannot do so. I can
see how it would limit their ability to be part of this ongoing conversation
with the wider world. I ask myself how
this comes about. I think much of it
comes from limitations in the educational system. These are skills they should have learned in
school. And yet I have also seen
students who learned it not from school, but just from home it seems. As you will recall, I was writing little
books when I was 5 years old. And I used to babysit for a boy who was also a precocious reader and writer. At age 6, he was reading the sports page at breakfast. At age 10, he was writing social studies essays which
were at a college level. Is it inborn, or does it come from school or home? Anyway, this is a topic that interests
me. I did get a lot out of my work at
McBride helping people to improve such skills. It is a long road for many of them. I am grateful, so grateful that these skills were instilled in me.
See you later,
Emma
From: Gerry
To: Emma
Date: September 30, 2009
Dear Emma,
I am glad you liked my intuition piece. I didn’t mean to go on so long with it. It was very stream of consciousness, as you
can tell!
You make a very good point about education. The ability to read and write well and
clearly is at the very core of being able to understand, discuss, and
participate in this world of ideas.
Having been well educated myself, I honestly don’t know what it would be
like to not have these abilities. I will
say that I do see deficiencies often in my own students, but those deficiencies
are more about critical thinking and organization than the basic ability to read
and write. Such deficiencies can also
interrupt and limit their ability to really follow that skein of yarn, to draw
water from the well as you say. Yes, I
am very lucky to have received such a good education throughout my life.
In your case, I will say that it started at home with your
parents. You of course had natural
ability (“gifted” was the term I believe you used haha), but that ability was
encouraged and assisted by your parents.
They were the ones who let you assemble that tote bag full of bookmaking
materials. They photocopied your
books. They even provided paper and
pencil instead of some toy while you were in meeting, which is what
got you started in the first place. And
I would guess that they must have read to you as well as encouraged you to read
and have books. I presume they discussed things intelligently and listened to you, allowing you to develop critical thinking and a sense that you had a voice in this world. That is so incredibly
important. So many children do not have all of those advantages.
All good things start with gratitude. And so I share with you in the feeling of
gratitude for those who taught me reading and writing.
Your friend,
Gerry
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