Effort – Hiding in Plain Sight

Everything we do requires effort.  If we want to use our kinetic energies wisely, some degree of self-observation is required.  Yet this can be difficult because of what Michael Polanyi has termed subsidiary versus focal awareness.  Both aspects of perception are involved whenever working with tool.

For example, in hammering we attend to both the hammer and the nail but in different ways.  We watch the effect of our strokes in order to pound the nail effectively, yet we are also alert to the sensations in the hand holding the hammer.

According to Polanyi, “I have a subsidiary awareness of the feeling in the palm of my hand which is merged into my focal awareness of my driving the nail.”  These are mutually exclusive, for “if a pianist shifts his attention from the piece he is playing to the observation of what he is doing with his fingers…he gets confused.”

Laban understands this argument for focusing on what rather than how.  Find out his counter-argument in the next blog.