Thursday, August 23, 2012

How New World Begins

Weeding a garden (field) is called "Yurukahssahmah".  It may look a simple task, but needs a special skill: to distinct "Gyarr" (millet) from "Yormahng" (weed) or vice versa.  Although Gyarr is a single species, Yormahng includes every other species except the millet.  They are in a figure-ground relationship.  You root out Yormahng very fast, almost automatically, as if you do not actually "think" about what the grabbed species is. 

Sherpa work at a field

Although acquiring the skill is of course embodied from learning, it does not only involves "acquiring".  It is a process of transformation of one's worldview: The garden is not just a single-green field, but, as one would acknowledge, composed an ecosystem in which two  qualitatively different beings are contesting exclusively each other.  Learning is not just an instance of addition; learning inducts a beginning of a new world, a new life.  

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