There is Nothing to Get!

I was struck last night when Sara (happily?) exclaimed that things clicked for her last night--that reading these accounts, doing these analyses of lived experiences, had become both easier and clearer. She followed this up by saying that phenomenology is engaging for her because we never really know where the analysis will take us, and that in doing this work, we engage--and these are now more clearly my own words--the unthought of our own thinking and living.

Across the semester, I have seen (or sensed? or hoped for?) this “clicking” for many of you. This is not to say that the course or the things we have been doing have resonated for all of you, much less equally so. Nonetheless, I do feel like we have reached a certain important point in our collective journey together.

We worked through some tricky and emotional issues together, and I thank each of you for it.

I had a conversation with Anders earlier in the semester, and the conversation stays with me today. 

Anders rightly sensed it then, and I think many of you have probably sensed it likewise. 

What is the secret of doing phenomenology? 

Here it is: There is nothing to get.

If a methodology can be anti-methodological, it is because there is nothing to get. It simply says: Think deeply. Read carefully. Write elegantly. Live beautifully. Let the world transform you. Open your ears. Sleepers, awake!