Change Resitant – Why do we Ignore our Senses?

Posted on May 4, 2008
Filed Under Fake Culture, Society, Spirituality | 2 Comments

Our physical senses have a very simple job (in a complex sort of way); they report change to us. Change in light, change in air vibration, changes in physical motion and so on. What does this say about life? It tells us in very clear terms that life is about change. Yet strangely our society has evolved into a position where it is almost completely resistant to all change. And any change it does accept is either unintended, or takes years to unfold.

I know that I personally struggle with this, I like to do things in a certain way – but I have very short limits when it comes to structure and routine; I do not like too much of it. Our resistance to change comes in so many forms – even when everything in the natural world tells us reality is change. Society is very much about living within ‘cells’; contained units of varying size, inside of which we create a set social structure, with rules and ideologies based upon our (limited) experiences and (set) perspectives.

The ‘cell’ is ultimately a creation of government and society. Limits are set upon our ambitions, and from an early age we are shown the paths we must walk. In this way our natural inclination towards curiosity and change is driven out of us – and thus we become a much more suitable component for a change resistant (inter)national community. Curiosity is only accepted within certain professional fields and even then it is limited to predefined areas of examination.

Isn’t it amusing that one needs to be a professional in order to do what a child does innately?

Schooling is clearly an obvious culprit for such damage to the human desire for learning – that’s true learning as in developing our relationship with reality – as opposed to the artificial school-based learning, which is the accumulation of knowledge to improve our relationship with society. This is reflected in the fact that earlier mandatory school starting ages tend to negatively effect the kids ability to learn. South Korea and Finland are at the top of the world in terms of childhood education levels…the school starting age being six and seven. In England the mandatory school starting age is five, with many parents sending their children to school at four. It’s surely no coinsidence that England is very low on the education league tables.

It is worth pointing out that Rudolf Steiner – founder of the world renowned Waldorf Education schools – generally believed that it served a child best if they didn’t learn to read until the age of seven. This allows for the child to develop their being, and self-relationship much more smoothly.

We tend to forget that intellectualism is a tool not an essential natural human component.

I always find it odd and very disturbing to see children as young as five falling into the pitfalls of reason and logic, already starting to ignore what their own senses report. The most despairing thing about this is that often the more disassociated from our senses we become, the greater extent we lose touch with reality. Many adults don’t have the first clue as to what makes them feel ‘happy’, and many suffer an extreme sense of self-doubt and lack any form of direction in life. It’s only natural that under such circumstances we would fall under the thrall of materialism and consumerism.

Is there a way out of this on a global level? I honestly have no idea about that. But what I do know – is this; on an individual level we gain tremendous insight and self-power when we start living in tune with our natural self as opposed to our ego-based programmed desires. Perhaps the lesson here is to teach our children the importance of their relationship with themselves and with reality. I fully believe that we should help them in that task in whatever way possible, as well as limit the damage a nihilistic society inflicts upon us all…

Comments

2 Responses to “Change Resitant – Why do we Ignore our Senses?”

Brian on May 6th, 2008 9:04 pm

I had the pleasure of attending a Waldorf School in Princeton, NJ. Unfortunately, my parents could only afford to send me for one year. Despite such a short time, I will never forget the experience. I attended “preschool” at age 5, but I doubt the grades were any different. The teachers were incredibly nice, and allowed the kids total freedom. Even with that freedom the kids rarely fought, and there was no bullies like in public school. These students were already different than most because none of them were allowed to watch TV! Some of the activities we did were playing in the woods, long naps, and even cooking! I remember even leaving offerings to the gnomes of the woods! Things like that would never be tolerated in public school! We used to cook every week, and the students would bring a knife from home! A kid this days with a knife would be expelled and drugged without question! I think that my love for cooking comes from these fun activities. When I went to 1st grade in public school my spirit was immediately broken. I was labeled stupid, mostly because I was holding my pencil different (waldorf teachers didn’t care)! The teacher literally taped the pencil to my hand, to conform me! I was put in the slow classes to start, because I wasn’t reading fast enough! It was like a jail, you weren’t allowed to pee unless the teacher allowed you. She would let kids pee their pants after waiting for hours, to set and example! I used to come home crying everyday for most of the year. All of this is 100% true for N.J. public school in 1987-88, imagine the conditions now! Please if you have kids, don’t allow them to go through the same thing! Public schools must be avoided, especially at such a young age!
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Marcus on May 7th, 2008 12:52 pm

When you wrote about the deal with the way you held a pen as a kid, a memory came flashing back to me. I remember a girl in one of my classes when I was about 9 years old. She too held a pen differently to everyone else; this was made into a pretty big issue – with the teacher showing the girl how to ‘correctly’ hold a pen. Naturally this put a lot of unnecessary focus on the girl from the rest of the kids in the class.

Thing is – she was probably the most intellegent kid in the class…and was perfectly capable of writing. As you say, it is all about conformity.

I am really troubled about what to do when my daughter reaches schooling age. I sure don’t want to send her to a public school (funny, because in the UK ‘public schools’ are not ‘public’ but reserved for the ‘elite’ kids), at any rate I don’t want to send her to a state school. But we don’t have anywhere near enough money at the moment to send her to a Waldorf School.

I always hear good things about the Waldorf Schools, and you have made it sound like it was a lot of fun indeed. Those schools certainly understand that life is about our spirit self as much (if not more) as anything else.

As it stands at the moment I am thinking we will home teach her until she is 7, and then take a look at what options we have at that point…
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