Thinking At the Edge (Tae) Steps

Choose something you know and cannot yet say, that wants to be said. Have this knowing as a felt sense (a distinct bodily-felt unclear edge) to which you can always return

Write it down in a few paragraphs in a very rough way. 

From your felt sense, write the central crux in oneshort sentence, with one key word or phrase, even though the sentence doesn't really say it.

Underline the key word or phrase in the sentence.

Write down one instance.

What you choose to work on needs to be in a field in which you are knowledgeable and experienced. Do not work on a question, but on something that you know.  Just a little on from what you are easily able to say, there is something that you know very thickly from years of experience but which is difficult to talk about…it may seem illlogical… marginal…  unconventional… awkward… or it may simply be language seems no to work here.  If having a felt sense is unfamiliar to you, please consult www.focusing.org.

To find the crux, ask what in this do you wish to articulate?  Then, within this, what is the live point for you?

The sentence is just a starting point.  It does not need long deliberation. For the moment it states the crux of what you are tracking.

You need a specific example, an event or a time when     it actually happened.

Find what does not make the usual logical sense and write an illogical sentence.

If you have difficulty writing an illogical sentence, you can write a paradox.

What seems illogical may be the most valuable part. Please assure yourself that you are not dropping this out.

In a paradox something is said to be "x and also not x".

Take out the underlined word and write your sentence from Step 1 with a blank slot.  Write its usual (dictionary) definition and notice that it is not what you mean.

Return to your felt sense and let another word or phrase come to say what you mean.

Write the usual definition of the second word or phrase.

Return to your felt sense and let a third word or phrase come.

Write the usual definition of the third word.

Accept the fact that there is no established word or phrase for this knowing.

You recognize, "that's not what I meant".  This word would communicate something else. If you are saying something new, none of the words in their usual public meanings will say it exactly.

Make sure it is not just a synonym, but a word with a somewhat different meaning

When you consider its existing public meaning, you see that the second word does not fit either.

The public meaning of the third word is also not what you meant.

No word fits. None should, if this is new.

Although you cannot change the public language, you can write a whole fresh sentence to say what you had wished the single word to mean. 

Put the original first word back in the slot in your sentence from Step 1.

Write a phrase or sentence that articulates what you would want the word to mean, what it pulls out from your felt sense which the other two do not.

Now put the second word in the slot. Write a phrase or sentence to say what it pulls out from the felt sense.  

Do this with the third word

Write a “string” of all three words and the main fresh phrases in the underlined slot in your sentence from Step 1. At the end of your string add  “…”.

This time, do not give up your sense.  Insist that your sentence does speak from your felt sense.  Do not let the word say what it usually says. Wait until you feel this whole sentence speaking from your felt sense, even though most people might not understand it so. 

You will need fresh new phrases to say what you would want the word to mean in your sentence.  Rather than  large public words, let a new phrase come straight from your felt sense.

Play with the grammar and order.  Eliminate excess words until you have a sentence you like. Now you have an elaboration of what you are tracking.

Using the main words or phrases from Step 4, write a somewhat odd sentence or two in order to expand even further what you now mean by each of the words or phrases. 

In each of the new sentences, underline what is new and important.

Check whether you used any major public words in step 4.  If so make fresh phrases to replace those common public words.  Let what is new and specific in your felt sense express itself into freshly phrased language. Your sentences might make no sense unless they are understood as you mean them. Here are examples of linguistically unusual sentences: "Knowing the rules is a container from which new ways open". "Definitions stop cellular growth". "Be-having shows something it has".  If you let your felt sense speak directly, something linguistically unusual can come. 

collect facets, any instances that have  actually happened.

Choose three facets and write them with the details which relate to your felt sense.  Underline specifics that bring something you might want to keep.

Copy your original facet from step one here. Now you have four facets.

A facet need not illustrate allof your felt sense.  A facet can be anything that relates to the felt sense, including times when it came up, what someone said, any incidents even if you cannot tell yourself why they are relevant. Include odd or private things such as "the time the dentist said…".  Ask yourself “what has ever happened that has something to do with it?”

General ideas and metaphors are not facets. It isn't an actual event that happened to say "it's like heating something to agitate it". 

Any instance is superior to a higher order generalization because it has internal specificity. In any real life event you can discover a complex structure which is actually there. 

With each facet:

Notice that there are many intricate relationships between the details.  Find a relationship between some details that is relevant to your felt sense.

Restate this relationship in general terms so that it becomes a pattern which can fit many other situations.

In any actual experience there are relationships between details which can give you a new elaboration. Let each facet give you one specific pattern which you did not have before. 

Example:  The dentist has his thumb in my mouth holding a piece of cotton while he tells me his politics.   The pattern is:  Speaking to a person who cannot talk back can be intrusive. 

You might want to ask: "What does looking from the second facet let me see in the first facet, that I could not see just from within the first facet?"  

Write a sentence to capture any new pattern that you want to keep.

You might already have done this. "Crossing" means attributing the point of one facet to the other.  What new aspect of the first facet might become visible if you try to say that it has the same pattern as the second facet?

If the facets do not contain a structure for the whole central thing, this may be found by  looking at each facet through the other.

9  Writing freely

One purpose of TAE has now been achieved-- to articulate an implicit knowing and make it communicable.  I you wish, you can go on to build a formal, logical theory.

Now define A in terms of B, and also in terms of C.  First write each equation as an empty formula.  “A = B”.  “A = C”. Replace the = sign with the word “is.” Fill in the words or phrases which A and B and C stand for.  Now you have two sentences which might be quite right or quite wrong.

If necessary modify the sentences. Find the smallest change you can make, so that the "is" becomes true in some respect. Insure that you keep the crux of your felt sense.

A term is not a sentence.   For example, “something that moves from the inside” is a term.  A sentence always has at least two terms, a subject and a predicate.

Look at your words, phrases and patterns from allof the preceding steps. Make a list of possible candidates for main terms.  Choose what feels most important. 

Imagine a triangle connecting the three terms. Choose the terms so that most of your territory and your central crux fall within the triangle.  Other important ideas can be brought in later at Step 12

By equating A and B you are “defining” A by using B. Since both terms arose from the same felt sense, there will be a way in which such a connection is true.

If the sentence is grammatical and true and speaks from your felt sense, let it stand. If not, keep the word "is" (or "are") and add or change as little as possible so that the assertion is true and speaks from your felt sense. You can insert “is something which”. If the sentence seems too inclusive, you can say "some," “one kind” “is at least” e.g. “one kind of A is B.”

Now you have one true sentence that connects A and B, and one that connects A and C.

Now dip into the intricacy of the felt sense to find out why A is inherently B.  Why are these two things inherently connected? What is the very nature of "A", such that it has to be "B"?

Do this also with "A is inherently C."

Write down what you find. Explain the inherent connections. Underline every inherent link you found between A and B and A and C. 

Since "A" and "B" express one felt sense, it will be the case that "A" is inherently "B", not only that it happens to be "B"



This requires entering into the felt sense behind the two terms.  Ask  “What is A?”  “What is B?”  You discover some respect in which Ais B.  There has to be an "Aha".  Of course! A always was nothing but the sort of thing that has to be B. 

You may get “A is X, and X is Y” and “aha, I see that B is also Y.”  So via the fact that they are both Y, they are inherently related to each other. X and Y are inherent links between A and B

Build a new and expanded A term.  Choose A, B or C from step 10.  Ask yourself, “What is my central more than logical crux?”  Put this whole crux into the A term.  One way to do this is by filling in the sentence, “A, which is … and is…”

The inherent links you found in Step 11 will now be terms.  Take the links you found between A and B in Step 11 and write them down. 

Now, for your new B, take the inherancy link which is most obviously equivalent to A and call it B. Then write A is B. 

To develop your theory continue in this way.  Take the link closest to B and call it C and write B is C and so on.  So you have A=B; B=C; C=D and so on. 

You can do the same with the chain of inherent links you found between A and C of step 10. 

A TAE theory is both logical and experiential.  The equal sign does not eliminate the different intricacy of each term.  That is why equating can be exciting and informative.  On the formal logical side the two terms are interchangeable, but on its experiential side the inherancy equation is an understanding.  It is not really an equation of two units regardless of content.  Moving between the two sides can lead to further terms you may need.

You can now bring up important words or phrases you have not yet used and find the inherent link between the new aspect and one of your terms. 

Substitute terms to generate new sentences in the following way: If  D = A and A = B, then D = B.   The sentence D = B is new. 

Less formally, you can group what you have not yet used under one or another of the main terms to which it could be equivalent.  You can then substitute them in to generate more sentences which logically follow.

You need not use every inherent link you have, and you may need additional links as you bring in more terms. 

When you link any two terms with “is” you may need to use “some,”  “one kind,” or “is something which” in your sentence. for example, “A is something which makes B.”

There is an excitement because you can see you are going to be able to derive and define each next thing from your theoretical nucleus.

Once you have a term, keep it the same for every occurrence of that term. The logical power depends on the terms staying the same.  Once you have the underlying logical connections they can give power to many differently worded versions, for instance in letters, papers, or conversations. 

Describe what this brings which you have not yet covered and link it to your terms.  Then other terms can explain or

relate to this new term in many new sentences.

If you have added new terms, you may suddenly realize that they define a topic in your field.  It is exciting when you have  “derived” something in this way.

Some substitutions may surprise you and extend your theory.  When you obtain a new sentence but it seems wild or false, pinpoint what seems wrong and make a change without losing what was new.  For example, suppose by substitution you get H is B.  This might seem ungrammatical and false but it can be exciting to rethink the nature of "B". Might "B" have this odd patterning? How might that be true of "B"? Then -- aha! -- it might suddenly emerge for you that this is indeed so! It might tell us more about the nature of "B" than we knew before.

Once a logical system exists, its inferences are “formal,” which means the inference happens from the logical connections regardless of the content.  If your terms lead to a logically tight inference which your felt sense will not accept, some change is needed.  Small  changes or additional terms at that point will usually correct it.  If not, then the logical system has to be re-opened.  Otherwise keep the logical system closed so that it can operate.  When the system operates both logically andin accord with the felt sense then its further “formal” inferences can be powerful, surprising and significant.   

This is a playful and quick step.

The new pattern in your terms can serve as a "model". Apply the pattern to any large area such as art, religion, education, metaphor.

Write a sentence such as  “Education  (or some aspect of education) is A”.  Now wait for something to leap up which makes the sentence true. Write what you find.

How might your pattern allow you to say something about human nature, or society, or the state, groups, interpersonal relations, the physical sciences, truth, beauty, ethics, writing, sexuality, language -- any one large idea?

Or, choose something specific, rather than the whole idea.

We know that the pattern you have articulated can happen in human experience because it did in your facets. The pattern is probably not yet known. These large ideas are unclear accumulations of much meaning and experience. Looking at a large idea through your theory may reveal something that is or should be true.

This step is playful unless you happen to be an expert on that topic. Then you could develop it. 

14 Expanding and applying your theory

This is the serious development of your theory. It may continue for years

One way to expand your theory is to ask:   “What is a next question or a new understanding to which it leads?

Add inherent links if necessary so that you can derive what is needed.

After the new term is linked, see by substitution what your other terms are able to say about it.  

You can expand your theory further and further in this way.

To apply your theory choose a related area, observation, event which you would like to be able to explain or clarify.  Where might your theory make an important difference? 

Freshly define this in the terms from your theory.. 

If you take your theory seriously, what must be supplied immediately before you can consider anything further

If your theory implies something you don’t mean, what further term or distinction would correct it

Recalling an actual instance may help you formulate the new distinction. 

Ask yourself, “How can my novel pattern restructure this?” Look at it through your pattern.  Formulate it as an instance of your pattern.  If you define it this way, what differences or specific aspects emerge.    

What might your theory show that could be valuable for a person working on this topic?  What further question would your theory lead one to ask?  You are creating new concepts.

Do not let fixed definitions or old ways of thinking limit what you say, even if the topic is large and there  is a well established view.about it.   Do not hesitate to restructure it. We call such restructuring a “reversal” of the usual way.  Something new and specific is easily submerged by the existing assumptions about the larger topic.  .

People sometimes believe that their new theory "must be" what some older existing theory "really means", if correctly understood. But the older theory alone does not give people this precise understanding.  How does A

The function of a theory is social. Being able to speak precisely from your felt sense builds your understanding into our world.                            

The Focusing Institute January, 2003

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