I was just reading the comments on the blog for the Day 2 post (Day 2 Is About Getting Ideas) and I think they warrant some discussion. Some discussion had arisen around the idea that the podcasts were full of "so much idle talk" and "chit chatting", and some of the discussion ran counter to that suggesting. Also, some people brought up the idea that summaries of the podcasts should be posted, but let me come back to that.
The title of this thread was something I came up with half jokingly. First it was going to be "The Zen of Ed", but I was pretty sure that I wasn't using the word correctly. So I looked up
"Tao" on Wikipedia and I was amazed to find that it really described what the whole Ed Experience (didn't they play outdoor rock festivals in the late 1960's?) is about
:
"often translated as ‘Way’ or 'Path'"
and
"fulfillment in life cannot be attained by forcing one's own destiny; instead, one must be receptive to the path laid for them by nature and circumstance, which will themselves provide what is necessary"
That's really the essence of what Ed's tutelage is about. The technical underpinnings of what Ed teaches are very sound, they always are. Much of that is supported by Dan, Rob and others. But part of studying under Ed is the journey, and if you strip the Yin of what people describe as idle talk, or time killing chatter from the Yang of the technical material, it's just not as robust an experience.
I've heard Ed describe it as something akin to Judo (which I happen to study) where your opponent charges, you gracefully use your force to guide their force, pushing them in the direction that you wanted them to go, which was really just a very particular spot along the path they were moving on under their own force anyway.
My point (and I swear I do have one) is that you can't just strip out the technical bits and expect them to work as gracefully or as well. As cliche as it is going to sound, you have to do the "wax on, wax off" part of the process if you want to be able to "
sweep the leg, Johnny" later.
So my advice (and please, other people who have done The Challenge, weigh in on this) to those among you who are wondering where the beef is:
Let go, Let Ed
About content summaries, in past challenges these were produced by lovely and talented participants, and I would expect that to happen again this year.
But if you limit your study just to those, it will be like just reading the Cliff's Notes, you might get through the test, but you won't really attain a mastery of the material.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong,
-PS