Thomas Bernhard, in Extinction, makes a very sharp reflection on what can be called the practical man and the thinking man. According to his reasoning, the practical man hates idleness and usually identifies it with the thinking man. However, the practical man, unaccustomed to thought, only conceives of action as practical action, and therefore cannot understand the absence of practical action as anything other than idleness. But the truth is that idleness does not exist for the thinking man, because it is precisely under the appearance of idleness that he experiences his states of greatest excitement. This, however, is far beyond the comprehension of the practical man. The curious thing about all this is that, in fact, it is precisely the practical man who slips into the idleness that he hates so much: incapable of thinking, only for him does the absence of practical action mean genuine and absolute inaction.
Category: Notes
The Real Student Is the Teacher
The real student is the teacher. Because teaching is, in essence, also studying; but studying in a depth that can only be achieved through teaching. Or rather: it is teaching itself that demands it, since it brings up a multitude of problems that lead to further research, unimaginable to the average student. So the teacher, if he is not a bad teacher, the more he teaches, the deeper he gets into the subject, the more he learns about its details, the more he crystallizes the theory in his mind and the more able he becomes to teach, because he discovers what the student needs to learn.
The Countless Facilities That Are Available Today…
There is a certain irony in the fact that the countless facilities that are available today for learning every language imaginable are not enough to understand them in depth, since, after a certain level, to understand them is to understand their difficulties. In other words: the countless and valuable incentives for learning hardly allow the student to go beyond the surface of the language studied; if he wants to do so, he has to abandon them and face the difficult, using the most archaic processes, although they are proven to be essential. There is no way out: there comes a time when it is necessary to put aside the jokes and sink into the difficult originals.
Learning a Language Is a Matter of Hours of Study
Learning a language is a matter of hours of study. The primary function of the method therefore comes down to keeping the student stimulated, so that he can study more and therefore learn faster. Secondly, it is up to the method to guide learning according to the student’s objectives, i.e. among the four fundamental skills in the study of a language (oral and written comprehension; oral and written expression), it is up to the method to focus more on the one or ones that are most desired. In all cases, progress won’t be very far without a solid foundation in all four. In all cases, progress is directly proportional to dedication. The rest is useless talk.