Ocean

There is water pouring in through the ceiling of my kitchen. The light bulb has become a surrealist's shower. Turn on the light and the water inside the bulb begins to boil.

Rollo Kim



Gurdjieff is not a cynic, but an optimist. His analysis of the state of most people is not a condemnation but rather a suggestion of hope.

What he means by "mankind is asleep," is that most people have a system of built-up habits of thought and behavior from which it is nearly impossible for them to deviate, primarily because they identify with this system, taking it to be themselves. They do not consider that they learned these habits in the same way that they learned language: by imitation. They acquired this system, called the personality, mostly when they actually _were_ impressionable, gullible, and easily trusting: when they were children. Gurdjieff offers a system by which a person my non-identify with this system in order to study it and determine which parts of it are not virtuous or beneficial to the individual as a whole, for any study quickly reveals many conflicts of interest within the self which impair the overall willpower. http://skepdic.com/comments/gurdjcom.html