i keep hearing the u2 lyrics:

"sleep comes like a drug in god's country."

i am tired, i have a full day tomorrow, i can't sleep. sleep comes anyway, if not like a drug, then like the ground after a trip through a seventh floor window: it comes up on you fast and hard.

i am revising my pathetic chs application. i am reading a book called "doing qualitative research differently," and am studying up on interview techniques. very interesting. aside from traditional research concerns, such as developing rapport, the book questions the very notion of the interview as a legitimate information gathering technique, and wrestles with problems of "interviewer-coopting-interviewee's-narrative-for-purposes-of-study," "transparency-of-self", "transparency-of-subject", and transference-countertransference.

i think about these issues, not just with regards to my (HOPEFULLY) forthcoming research, but to other contexts, like patient intakes and such. maybe even everyday conversations. i mean, think about it. how much do we really listen to each other? when we ask others questions about themselves, are we really interested in hearing their constructed narratives (ie, the "story" and "meaning" they have self-generated), or do we "cut to the chase" and automatically seek to filter out our version of the truth through the sieve of our own preconceptions?

(if we bother to hear the other person at all...)

it reminds me of so many other things. such as the montessori principles of teaching (ie, teacher as "observer"), or certain styles of acupuncture ("less is more"). i do believe as a principle that the sign of a master of anything is his/her level of "gentleness," or, in other words, the ability to do more work with far less effort, and/or the ability to "disappear completely." self-effacement. the paradox of somehow controlling the outcome by not controlling anything. wu wei. letting things "speak for themselves."

well, i'd best get back to that book, and then, to reformulating my chs application in a more "informed" and intelligent manner.

i thank the patience of god and my instructors (often confounded in my head)...

***

"sleep comes like a drug..."