The life-force
Last week I wrote about the four Levels of Being. If you haven’t read it, I recommend you do as I draw on it, and thus assume some familiarity with it on your behalf, for this post.
What’s this thing I keep referring to - the life-force, the inner-life, the inner-world?
I know it’s significant. I know it’s an indicator of a paradigm shift when thinking about schools.
But I know I never thought about it early in my teaching career.
The only real thing I know about it is that it can’t be seen. Yes, I can see the person and I can see them move. But movement can’t be relied on to provide an insight into that inner world. Headless chickens run about. The legs of our dog Tully twitched for five or ten minutes after her death.
Movement can literally be the manifestation of atoms doing what atoms do - movement devoid of life. (Much like the argument that love is nothing more or less than the flooding of the brain in dopamine, etc.)
But movement can be more than that. It can be the expression of will. Tully was very wilful - she would often look at us when we called her and decide whether she would come or not. This made her a poorly trained dog in the eyes of many (not us - we knew her) but it certainly indicated there was some conscious decision-making going on.
Can we say that movement founded on will is an indicator of a life-force? Is it its expression?
So what of plants? They too can move: with the wind (a passive kind of movement); towards the sun or nutrients (an active kind of movement). What is this kind of movement founded upon? Response? Self-preservation? If movement is active, is that an indication of the presence of a life-force?
And what of you? What guides your movements: consciousness, self-awareness?
Not all of your movements will be conscious. Often, we see the transition from conscious to unconscious movement as an indicator of mastery. Learning to drive is a good example of this. We start off very conscious of our movements and with practice become less so.
So perhaps our movement becomes ‘powerful’ if its origin is in self-awareness and thus has a degree of unconsciousness about it, when it’s also a reflection of intent (our will). So, a batter in cricket has an intent to score and that’s what directs their unconscious movements. The better the batter, the more ‘unforced’ their movements appear.
Undoubtedly, there’s talent mixed up in this, along with opportunity and time.
All this is making me think of how rubbish I am at golf. There’s one thing that is constant on every trip to the course: my intent to play well, be calm and rhythmical. I aim for those things because they are the things I’ve felt in those fleeting moments when I’ve played with a modicum of skill.
In those moments my movements have become unconscious and totally aligned with my intent. These moments have been my peak experiences on a golf course.
But I’ve spent most of my time on a golf course acutely aware - conscious - of every movement. This is hard work. I overthink, over-correct and have a creeping sense of inhibition.
Sometimes, I end up in a place where I’ve become so conscious that I’ve become reactive. In these moments I’ve even lost that sense of consciousness and felt like a plant flapping about the course.
Yes, I’ve been alive, searching for something, but also blown about at the mercy of the environment, despite my intent. It’s a long way back from there.
The interesting thing is that outwardly there is very little difference in my movements.
So, intent can be constant, and movement can be consistent with it, but the life-force experience that underpins it can differ radically.
Here’s where things get interesting. There is something in working your way out of a reactive state. You can learn quite a bit about yourself in that process. And equally, those peak moments rely on not just talent but also an investment of time in conscious, hard work, which is a really satisfying feeling.
It’s who gets the credit that matters, however.
For if I get out of that reactive state by being dragged out by someone else, then I will ascribe credit for that to them. They saved me.
If I put in the hard work at the command of someone else, then my success is due to them and often defined by them. I will know that, as this excellent article from the Guardian says, I am a ‘figment of their ambition’ …
… It’s 2021. Sydney is 21. Three days ago she broke the world record at the Olympic trials. Now she’s sitting in her car, outside the shops, trying to fight back tears. “I don’t know what’s happening,” she says into her phone camera. “I achieved one of my life’s dreams. And the people who I thought would be most excited didn’t even care.” The rolling tears collect into sobs. “You can do everything right, and it’ll never be enough. There’s always a problem with you.”
But, if I get out of that reactive state by my own actions, then I will ascribe credit for that to my abilities. I saved myself.
If I put in the hard work because I am willing and driven to, then my success is due to my actions. I know that I am a manifestation of my ambition.
The difference is profound.
Control, agency, autonomy, whatever you want to call it, matters.
Think about the impact on your life-force in each context. In the first, it’s diminished; in the second, it’s allowed to flourish.
Play is a pedagogy is that gives kids multiple contexts in which to feel the power of a flourishing life-force because they have control over their experience.
It’s this that those avid proponents of standards and standardisation of education don’t get. While their approaches get good academic results, they do so by diminishing the life-force that exists in each child.
But we’re stuck with a problem. The life-force is invisible. It cannot be measured. Only the individual is aware of its ‘state’.
And we must be aware of taking this idea to the extreme, and thinking that we should leave people to their own devices. Connection matters (see the posts Connection, on purpose and Building beehives for play).
We need to think of how connection can be provided so that it allows for the life-force to flourish. I think this is where conversation is important.
My brother is an excellent golfer. He kicks my butt every time. When I’m in that reactive state, feeling like I’m flapping about the course, if I turn to him and say, ‘Fuck! What’s happening here?!?’ he’ll always have some little thing he’s noticed to offer.
PS: I’ve realised this is the problem I’m trying to solve with the SMATA app - fostering deeper connections between teacher and learner so the learner’s inner-world, their life-force, can become visible and the driver of learning.
Is this too abstract?