Breaking

Asher writes about how to teach. I was re-reading this:

http://www.guruhandbook.com/?p=83#comments

And thought about times where I've broken. It was always limited- I've never experienced a feeling that my entire identity or entire world view were shattered... at least not in a bad way. That is largely due, I think, to the fact that I've never been 'sure' of anything. The world I understand is only my best explanation so far. Who I am is only what I have done and felt in the situations I have experienced. Neither has ever felt definitive.

There have been times, though, when things or people I loved turned out not to be what I thought. When futures I had dreamed and planned for spiraled to destruction.

One was judo in specific and martial arts in general. I had believed in a warrior mythos, a modern chivalry. That anyone who persevered through training that intense must be cleaner, more ethical, better than those who didn't or couldn't stand the impact and sweat. When I found that some of the very best at this thing that I loved could be human, even less than normally human in some ways, it was a tremendous loss of faith.

I recovered and continued to train by loving what was there. This is the key, why my recovery in these times is usually swift, why I rarely agonize: there was nothing to mourn. There was no loss. The thing that was shattered had never been a true thing. The choice was between wallowing over a shattered illusion or simply loving the real thing that was left. That was any easy choice, really no choice at all.

Strangely, the real thing that is left is always simpler than the thing that was shattered.