There are moments in one’s learning that stand out. Some moments of learning lend themselves to a ‘eureka!’ type feeling; others lend themselves to celebration; some feel neither, almost nothing.
Yesterday, at the skatepark: an impromptu session, hadn’t planned to go out but circumstances lent themselves at the last minute. No intentions to try anything new; just a roll about with a friend. Just for the sake of it, I start trying feeble fakies with no real intention of landing them. A relatively straightforward manoeuvre, I’ve been trying these for an age without rolling away successfully; almost to the point of not really thinking they’ll ever be possible. Many sessions have included curse words and stumbles backwards from foiled attempts and friends insisting that ‘you’ll get them’. Most of the time when I try I don’t really believe that I’m going to do it.
Except…my friend makes a suggestion, based on a trick I can already do practically blindfold. I try it, and it works – it makes perfect sense, brutally obvious, why haven’t I thought about this before? I drop into the ramp, I feeble fakie, I roll away. I do it again, and again and again. I can feeble fakie. It feels totally natural, as if I’ve always been able to do it. I’m pleased, of course – but it feels strangely neutral. Nothing has really changed, I’m still Andrew.
And…..so? There is a subtle shift when something becomes possible; a shift from not knowing to knowing, from can’t to can. The end goal doesn’t really matter. What matters is bringing something into being; creating the scope for new possibilities, new processes. The realisation that one can make new things happen through persistence, observation, commitment, learning and action, which then become….knowledge? Repertoire?
When describing the Fourth Way, old Georgie speaks of The Need For Effort – ‘awakening results from consistent, prolonged effort’. Today, thinking about yesterday’s turn of events, I can say that my attempts may have been consistent and prolonged; and at some point they might have been efforts, but they stopped being such a while ago - until yesterday morning.
There’s a difference between trying and effort, maybe: effort doesn’t worry about the result; trying exists in fear of failure. Of course one wants the result – but the result doesn’t manifest when you want it; create the conditions and it’ll simply happen.