4/2/2021 0 Comments Second EducationSECOND EDUCATION My “second education” lasted 20 years, from 21-40. This corresponded quite well to what Erik Erikson, a well-known psychologist who we studied in the 1960’s – 80s, calls Young Adulthood, the 6th stage (there are 8 in total) of psychosocial development. He says that the focus of this stage is love relationships. I have selected a few pivotal events in 1976, as examples, to share my transition story into and through Young Adulthood. In February, Catherine and I got married at our home. At the time, we were living in a large, beautiful communal house with eight other people, all of us in our 20s. It was located in Brookline, MA, near Boston University and Fenway Park and served as the central gathering place for our meetings, rehearsals and group work. We were part of a larger group of approximately 60 people focused on inner / spiritual development that was organized by one man, Cesareo, a fiery Cuban and psychology professor. Our original studies included the great humanist psychologists such as Maslow, Carl Rogers, Albert Ellis, Dr. Moreno (psychodrama) and many more. Cesareo had already expanded his own approach to inner growth when, while browsing in a book store, he discovered a book by Kathryn Hulme, (she also wrote the “Nun’s Story”) called “Undiscovered Country, In Search of Gurdjieff”. It piqued his interest and he wanted to know more. His follow-through was so complete that it led him (and us) to the heart of the Gurdjieff work in Paris. This teaching formed the foundation for our group for many years, and for Catherine and me, the rest of our lives. In May, I graduated from Law School after going for four years at night. Five years earlier, Cesareo had mentioned that he had a plan to purchase a theater and create a unique vaudeville type show. He told me that this theater business would need a lawyer. He suggested (as a task) that I go to law school at night, find a way of earn the extra money during the day. I also needed to be fully available for the group work we would be doing. This I did, and it turned out to have more far-reaching positive consequences than I could have possibly imagined at the time. A note about tasks: Tasks were almost always presented as invitations (as in “your mission, if you wish to accept it.”). All of us were given general tasks such as “show up on time, no excuses”. We were also given personal tasks, both inner and outer that sometimes helped us fill in some of the “gaps” in our lives. There was almost always some level of difficulty that, at first, seemed quite impossible but generally turned out to be achievable. Tasks also had another dimension. They were NOT done just for completing the task. There was an extra purpose, inner and/or outer, that the task was to serve. Over time, it completely changed how many of us tried to approach most things in our lives. It did not matter whether it was as simple as washing the dishes or far more complex like running a business. The task was simply an activity that had, or at least could have, a meaning beyond simply getting it done. Eventually we learned to self-assign tasks, and perform them with the same intensity and commitment as when they had been assigned by Cesareo. This became a life-long practice. May – Cesareo wished to buy the Cabot Theater in Beverly. It was not on the market nor was there any clarity that the owner, E.M. Loew, a movie-theatre mogul, would agree to sell it. We had attempted to rent it for a summer a few years before, but the stage was in such disrepair that it was not feasible. A week after my law school graduation, Cesareo asked me to visit Mr. Loew and see if he would sell the Cabot to us. Taking my law school knowledge and my anxiety with me, I met with Mr. Loew, who was in his 80s at the time. After a memorable conversation (for me), he agreed to sell for a reasonable price. I think what got him to say yes was that he could see that we wanted to revive and beautify the theater that he loved. July 4th This year was the 200th anniversary of America, and an enormous Boston Pops concert was held at the Hatch Shell in Boston. Our group had been collecting beer cans and recycling the aluminum to make some extra money to donate to the theater venture. On the morning after the celebration, there was the “motherload” of beer cans stretching from the hatch shell to within a few blocks of our communal home. We gathered cans for hours. August – We became official owners of the Cabot Theatre. A large group of us spent several days cleaning the Theatre and quickly opened without fanfare. Catherine and I were both teachers so we (and several others) could devote full time to performing the many tasks required to get going. We did our best to remember that the entire theatre venture itself was simply a TASK for self-development. However, it turned out that this was not easy to do. August – Catherine and I bought a house in South Hamilton, a 15-minute drive to the Theatre. It was an old, New England house built before the civil war in need of constant repair. Catherine had a flair for fixing things and had taken some courses at the local vocational school in plumbing, tiling and electricity. We also learned wallpapering and painting as we went along. October – Based on our daughter Elizabeth’s birth the following June, she was conceived in October. It is intriguing that both Catherine and I, independently, had the intuition that we actually knew the exact night she was conceived. I wonder if that is sometimes true with other couples as well. As I look back at my “second education”, one of the main teachings that we received was to become resilient. We learned to take what came our way and make it useful in one way or another. We discovered that, to some extent, we could choose our ATTITUDE as well as the importance of where we placed our ATTENTION. These two “choice points” were our ongoing disciplines that turned into life-long practices. As I was writing this blog, I came across a simple saying, in my inbox, from the Buddhist tradition. that captures some of the teachings we were given: “Call something an obstacle, it is an obstacle. Call it an opportunity, it is an opportunity. Nothing is extraneous to the spiritual life”.
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