Eileen

And then, you know, you were sort of judged by someone else as having been a failure, right?

Like literally, F.

So I think the teacher came to it with the idea that the purpose of swimming lessons is for you to be able to swim on the last day, which is in a sense true.

But the question is not just what's the output.

It's what's the process.

And there I think the teacher has totally missed the point.

Yeah, and I would say even more than that, the most immediate question the teacher is asking or should be asking is, how have you been engaging with this material as I've been facilitating your invitation into it, right?

What has the thought process been like for you?

And how can I shape the context that we're in together in a way that will invite you to make the most productive, enjoyable use of this opportunity possible?

Yeah.

So we're calling this thing transcendent thinking because it's our natural proclivity to start to make deeper meaning out of the things we're witnessing, to try to understand and grapple with the why, the how come, the how else, the what is the history of this?

What's the story behind it?

What are the hidden intentions?

What are the beliefs?

What are the values that motivate this?

How does it connect to the identities that those in the situation bring?

How does it foretell

possible different kinds of futures as we play it out over time.

So that ability to sort of move beyond the immediate current details of the things you can directly discern and witness and infer from a situation and to grapple with how those connect to bigger ideas and powerful values and beliefs and stories and concepts, that's what we're calling transcendent thinking.

Absolutely.