Entry 1: Hegel and Craft

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's work "Phenomenology of Spirit", or at least the little of what I was able to comprehend of the first few incredibly dry chapters, had a heavy impact on my perspectives concerning interest and learning.

The work, in part, dives into the methodology behind knowing and understanding, emphasizing the importance of of suppressing the ego and opening one's self up to the full experience of the external object/idea of focus. He encourages his readers through the often aggravating process of development - the hardships are often necessary in achieving not only a more full understanding of the external but also, self discovery as a byproduct of the endeavor..

This is ultimately why I invest so much time in craft and why I don't weigh the process down with expectations of financial profit. I am interested in more than just an end-product in and of itself. My interest is in what the end-product represents - the degree to which I have mastered my ego. In so doing, I am exploring and defining my existence as a being inside of a system of external objective truths. In an age largely ruled by subjectivity, this is my personal means to an existential, non self-loathing, compass.

A few excerpts underscored with my personal takeaway:

"Just as little as a building is finished when its foundation has been laid, so little is the achieved Notion of the whole the whole itself. When we wish to see an oak with its massive trunk and spreading branches and foliage, we are not content to be shown an acorn instead. So too, Science, the crown of a world of Spirit, is not complete in its beginnings. The onset of the new spirit is the product of a widespread upheaval in various forms of culture, the prize at the end of a complicated, tortuous path and of just as variegated and strenuous effort." (paragraph 12.)

I like that. You don't judge an oak tree by its acorn. Oak tree is the result of a long and involved process. So, too, is the understanding of any craft - the basis of any skill set.

"The goal is Spirit's insight into what knowing is. Impatience demands the impossible, to wit, the attainment of the end without the means. But the length of this path has to be endured, because, for one thing, each moment is necessary; and further, each moment has to be lingered over, because each is itself a complete individual shape, and one is only viewed in absolute perspective when its determinateness is regarded as a concrete whole, or the whole is regarded as uniquely qualified by that determination." (paragraph 29.)

Skipping over the frustrating or hard parts of a process is cheating yourself of the fullness of the knowledge of a thing. Further, it is a blatant disrespect of the object of interest in favor that the ego should be satisfied. The ego does not offer a path to, but away from, true craftsmanship.

"Since consciousness thus finds that its knowledge does not correspond to its object, the object itself does not stand the test; in other words, the criterion for testing is altered when that for which it was to have been the criterion fails to pass the test; and the testing is not only a testing of what we know, but also a testing of the criterion of what knowing is. (paragraph 85.)

Knowing a thing is meaningless unless you first ponder the question as to what "knowing" itself means. Truly knowing something to me seems like an unattainable goal. There is, of course, a state of possessing sufficient knowledge of a thing - a knowledge which competes or dominates the knowledge possessed by others, but this isn't to be confused with complete knowledge. In most people, this idea of sufficiency is a byproduct of the ego which I understand to be the death of learning.

"Consequently, we do not need to import criteria, or to make use of our own bright ideas and thoughts during the course of the inquiry; it is precisely when we leave these aside that we succeed in contemplating the matter in hand as it is in and for itself." (paragraph 84.)

Again, ego detracts from understanding. Understanding, however, can and often does refine ego.

"But the life of Spirit is no the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself." (paragraph 32.) 

Don't shy away from the hard lessons or failures. They are essential to a full understanding of a thing. I believe somewhere buried in the text, Hegel mentions that the knowledge of what something isn't is as important to a full understanding as what a thing is. In this perspective, there is great value in leaning into a mistake or failure to appreciate the understanding of that experience as a method of better defining the metaphysical ideal. That's not to say a repeated mistake or failure shouldn't be purely frustrating. A repeated failure is symptomatic of ego placed over understanding.