Learning is Trial and Error

Stefano - I just listened to the talk between Ken and George again, after a few years I think. It stimulated my spontaneous reminiscences of the decade or two that they mostly spoke of.

I didn't get to Esalen until around 82 or 83. I did several "intensives", mainly with a strong woman named Joan Fiore who I think later was writing a type of expose on some of Esalen's stuff. I was a mess, definitely in over my head, as I was simultaneously separating from my wife and I stopped my mini-career as a Physician Assistant to do carpentry. I was so unconscious that I didn't understand how unconscious I was (I am supposing that that is a phenomenon that is still going on at whatever degrees of development that are fluxing in me now.) I was rigid and conservative in many ways (I am probably also conservative in many ways now.) The baths, and it seemed that everyone was so free except me. It was way stimulating and the gestalt intensives probably were rocking my world.

George and Ken mentioned some emphases that were happening early on there and sensory work was one. Soon after Esalen experiences I started attending workshops on sensory awareness by Charlotte Selver, doing four multi-month study groups and numerous shorter ones over a period of 17 years until she died. The work we did wouldn't be considered "integral" because emphasis was placed on sensing and usually the avoidance of imagination, interpretation, and speculation - staying in the present. Thoughts to be valued were those that arose from a background of basic knowing (like sensing) and relative quiet - in the laboratory of sensory awareness experiments other thoughts were generally considered to be fanciful. These exposures probably helped this locked up person evolve and develop in a number of ways.

I got out of the army in 1969 and I was a relative mess but kept things glued together in a gross way, even as I went back to school and tried a year of law school as the restless hordes of students were burning down the ROTC building. (Of course, I was mess when I was drafted, too, and had been probably from the beginning of time, though I appeared like a normal guy. I was actually in a fraternity. I didn't have a crisis mental breakdown - I had the stamina to go through a low grade break down for years with fluctuating degrees of craziness and disorganization.) I had a brief Ayn Rand fascination for about half a year in there. At that general time, I remember walking beside a social psychology professor and unknowingly describing a profound disorientation where I said something like, " the world could turn upside down at any moment." I got hooked up with my wife in '70, worked in a law library, was a legal assistant, and sold real estate for a few of years. In 73 or 74, I started my masters in clinical psychology in a conservative and basic program (though I did get to do an independent study and client engagement around Carl Roger's work.) Simultaneously I became a massage therapist and had a business that contributed to supporting us. Shortly after finishing my degree I decided that psychology was "crock of shit!" Because I was still a suffering mess I projected that there was nothing of value there.

I thought that the body was where resolution and peace could be found. I worked in a hospital physical therapy department and did my own massage work for several years. I was exposed to a lot, though my understanding was probably rudimentary and categorical - I liked the Ida Rolf material and especially The Protean Body by Johnson that came out at that time. Most of the time I didn't know how limited I really was then, I thought I was cool - despite the ongoing mess of self. Towards the end of 70s I did a PA program through Stanford (that George reminded me of here) and was introduced there during orientation to the "Course In Miracles" though I didn't really get it, so wasn't drawn to it - I seem to have needed to have my neuroses and other borderline conditions torn from me or rot and fall off. I haven't released them and moved on easily. Developmental progress has been a slow grind, with, again, messy, growth spurts, and unresolved early life issues throughout have created friction, problems and sent me on numerous wild-goose chases.

I remember in the 70s being at a psychology conference where Kenneth Pelletier, other body-mind people, and Timothy Leary were there. Tom Hannah spoke and lead me to a Moshe Feldenkreis weekend in Novato, CA. I was pulled, but in an erratic and disorganized way. I heard Rollo May speak. And During the 70's and 80's Krishnamurti was my final litmus test for truth. "Integrate that, Sloppy Dude." Yeah, right.

Somewhat like yourself, over the decades I have spent bloody gobs of money on these workshops, trainings, "intensives", and study groups, across a lot of topics. Because of psycho-emotional convolutions that are molasses-like, I have been a slow learner and I envy many of those who have traveled so far, like Ken and George, or the younger ones who seem so quick, quick, quick. Yet how could anyone so handicapped and stuck and lost have logged so many years of college, past doctorate level, and dabbled in so many things? I really don't know. In more recent years I have tried some workshops and dropped out immediately or not shown up because ... well, I could attribute this and cast this in various ways. I have trouble believing much, anymore, maybe more consciously than before.

Late in the game, though still a very variable road, I feel overall more happy. Still, recurringly lost and semi-miserable. And sometimes, for a fleeting number of hours, I think that I know things. Then it falls apart again. Is that a Whooopee thing or a continuation of the Oh Shit thing?

It's your fault Stefano that I did my biographical schtick of bragging and apologizing again - with pride and shame and embarrassment and WTF. Thanks. Yeah, gheesh, thanks a lot, Dude!