Hi Andrew, happy New Year. This was a beautifully written article. I really liked your summary of how Calvinism supplies the work ethic. As for the hesitancy around marriage, I can relate to the 'optionality' mind-set outlined in option two. I think people get caught in a self-defeating loop of waiting for "the right time" to get married "once everything's in place", but something that changed in my mind before my wife and I got married was to see marriage as a revolutionary act. I can't remember where I read this (maybe Zizek?) but it was actually referring to the anti-colonial struggles of the mid-20th century when many former European colonies gained their independence. Some said that they should've waited until they were 'developed', otherwise they might've fallen into economic difficulties upon independence. But Zizek says no, you can't rationalise like that, you just have to do it, carry out the act and live in the reality it creates and build from there.
The fallacy you mention--waiting for the Right Time to do X once Everthing's in Place--is almost ubiquitous. Since, if Buddhists are correct, anicca (impermanence) is true and since there is no Promised Land here on earth, it stands to reason that one must choose to do X based on other considerations. I appeal to the heart (which I don't equate with the seat of emotions): https://tinyletter.com/andrewjtaggart/letters/according-with-reality-5-my-heart-dwells-in-silence.
Just having a browse and came across your article 'I’m An Anticareerist And You Should Be One Too'. Points four and five in particular addressed some of the thoughts I was musing on earlier. The message I take from them is that I should stop trying to see myself as a professional, perhaps not even as a teacher as such, but as just someone who finds delight in helping the young people in the classroom with me to learn? Yes, that sounds nice...
Hi Andrew, thanks for your tinyletter link. I read your article on the heart. I liked your comment that the heart isn't just sweet, sometimes it gives us warnings that we'd do well to heed. As for my own heart, I didn't mean to suggest that a Zizek article made me decide to marry my wife, ha ha, it was just an interesting metaphor. I suppose that's just my propensity to politicise or 'intellectualise things', something I need to examine perhaps (trying to 'look' smart?).
I also read all your other tinyletters and enjoyed them. I could see how your writing voice has developed over the years. I found the article about the Hopi reservation particularly touching. Your comment in letter 7 about disengaging from current affairs also spoke to me. Sometimes I reflect that if I never read the news there are only one or two events which have happened in 'the news' that have actually impacted directly on my life. Maybe I'd be a lot less anxious if I just didn't read the news. Although that might not be a good thing, maybe I'm too sheltered.
I also read your latest Total Work chapter, so many thoughts here. While reading I felt like I did want to write something deeply introspective to get to the heart of my 'doing' and my relationship towards work, my PhD, blogging, etc (trying to 'look smart', which you can tell I'm not that smart just from my grammar, and that's not me fishing for compliments :) ). Further, while I don't want to be pretentious with myself thinking that I can or should get deeply into mediation (apart from the relaxing Plum Village exercises you recommended), I definitely feel like one entrance point of meditation or reflection for me would be through boredom: flitting from this to that to stave it off. I could really try and experience boredom for 10 minutes without distraction.
As for feeling one has a calling, I've sometimes thought the opposite. In all honesty I was advised to become a teacher after not being great in some other jobs I had. I don't want to be too hard on myself, and I'm only speaking about myself as many of my colleagues are wonderful teachers, but maybe it was a last resort; "those who can't do, teach", right? However, despite at least initially in my own case, far from teaching being seen as a 'calling', over the years I feel like I've actually become a good teacher, it's something I've grown into and enjoy being 'professional' about it, trying to be a better teacher every year. I suppose where I'm at right now having engaged with your work is that yes, I can still be a good teacher, but without working too much. If I can't organise dozens of trips away for my students every year to ever more elaborate places then maybe I just need to accept that and leave it to those that can. I wondered if you had any specific thoughts on how to divest from Total Work for people who work in the public sector, perhaps, or for anyone who has people relying on their work; patients, students, employees?
Anyway, sorry for this post being a bit sloppy. Pretty tired this evening, but I was looking forward to chilling a bit and writing to you and everyone on the forum. Sometimes I'd like to post here or there but I'm a bit hesitant as I don't want people to think, "Oh, not that guy again." I suppose that's why timing is important, as you say. Best, James
Just a coda. I was being sarcastic when I made that '"those who can't do, teach", right?' comment; trying to turn that 'right?' on myself as someone saying that to me and it piercing me, not other teachers, who are good.
Thank you, James, for these reflections. Here are some replies:
1.) To my ear, it sounds as if you're being rather hard on yourself. This is an observation based on *the tone* of these reflections. You might re-read these notes and ask, "If I'm being rather hard on myself, why is that?"
2.) The heart could be the name given to a source of *unified knowing.* (The rational mind is often split, not infrequently in conflict with itself.) Indeed, it is the source wherein there is no sense, e.g., of being hard on oneself or of not being hard on oneself. The heart is peace, is at peace, and is an expression of peace.
3.) I like this: "I could really try and experience boredom for 10 minutes without distraction." In other words, I could try to be *with myself* for 10 minutes. I don't know how Johannes Niederhauser would define boredom, but I'd say, quite simply, that boredom = a resistance to a mildly discomforting situation. So, the key is that there's resistance. And that resistance quite often is not specifically to do with not doing something (interesting) but with being with myself. (The first bit--not doing something--is often the reason we give ourselves for what goes unsaid--I feel that I cannot be with myself.)
If I may gently joke, I'd say that the only trouble with this meditation is that once you start taking an interest in your own thoughts, feelings, etc. from the standpoint of the witness, the situation is no longer boring! In fact, it's quite interesting!
4.) Being, say, a wonderful teacher does not mean, as you well know, doing lots and lots of things with or for your students. What students will invariably remember about you is what it was like to be in your presence. I once had a mentor in college. She got cancer and died, quite unexpectedly, a few years after I graduated. I don't remember all the writing tips she shared with me; I remember what it was like to be with her. This is what I miss.
5.) Coming now to the anticareerism piece: Let's observe that "having a career" is basically a way of believing and feeling oneself to be self-important. This is too bad. Careerism is at once a jejune and a hifalutin answer to the question: "What does it mean to lead a good life?" Therefore, why not just drop the whole story?
You write, "The message I take from them is that I should stop trying to see myself as a professional, perhaps not even as a teacher as such, but as just someone who finds delight in helping the young people in the classroom with me to learn?"
Yes. Yes, you can hold "being a teacher" in one of two ways. The first way: Just drop the identity ("being a teacher," "being a professional"--here, cheekily, see: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/were-supposed-fing-professionals-andrew-taggart/), and be lovingly and kindly involved in acts of learning, listening, understanding, and so on without having to attach yourself to the identity--being a teacher, being a good teacher, being a great teacher, etc. Laozi, of The Daodejing, once spoke of "creating without possessing" and afterward of "forgetting." Laozi created without holding onto the identity of the creator.
The second way: When you're at a dinner party or some social gathering and someone asks you "what you do," you can say, "I'm a teacher." Yet when you say this, you realize that it's only conventionally true, not ultimately true. In consequence, you don't *actually* take *the being* of "I" to be equivalent to "teacher." For you, it's just a manner of speaking that makes sense to your interlocutor.
6.) Consider the possibility, also written about The Daodejing, that "the highest goodness flows like water." What would it be like for us not to be egoically hard on ourselves but to be seamlessly, lovingly in tune with life such that life quite often felt as if it were flowing water? Here's a taste, from 2012, of what I mean: https://andrewjtaggart.com/2012/05/15/ethical-life-restored-vii/.
Thank you again. My heart goes out to you. With all my kindness,
Dear Andrew, thanks so much for your detailed, warm and helpful reply. To take points 1, 2 and 4 together, yes, I am being too hard on myself. When I reflect on why this is, a good part of it comes from the top down, of feeling the need to impress my departmental heads and to be in competition with myself for their attention and approval (something I need to explore in a later post for sure). Not only am I looking in the wrong direction, but my self-assessment is not even true. I have had many many students tell me over the years that they have enjoyed my classes. Indeed, one of the best things is to receive a thank you card at the end of the academic year. It may sound small but sometimes I'm so glad of that I just have to go outside and have a walk around as I feel so elated. I can imagine that your college mentor friend received many such thanks and would surely be proud of your ability to help people through words.
As for moving out of the rigid role of “teacher”, again, you’re precisely right. One of the things I find most enjoyable about being in class is when you get to know a class and people become comfortable and - although always maintaining a responsible outlook – you begin to see each other less in that potentially antagonistic student/teacher dichotomy and more just as human beings. For example, I love the moments during a class when the “students” have been “working on” an “activity” (I’ll use those words for now, I know that the entire point of education is a big question that I need to ask myself; “education for what, to what ends? To just become another consumer?”, but I’m not sure how to phrase that question just yet – not that we aren’t engaged in enriching learning in class, I think we are), yet there’s a lull in the tempo and it seems appropriate to just have a chat and a laugh about something silly like conspiracy theories or the latest films/tv shows they've seen.
Coming to point 5, your advice has had really positive benefits for me. I had a meeting with one of my managers last week and it turns out that I am over 150% “over utilised” (now there’s a Total Work phrase!) in terms of my teaching hours. This means I’ve been teaching over 1 and a half job’s worth of lessons. No wonder I’ve been feeling stressed out! This came about because I teach across two different sectors in the college’s Further Education and Higher Education departments and I hadn’t really clicked that this would add up to so many extra hours; common sense isn’t my strong point, ha ha, just ask anyone in my family. The short of it is that college are going to either pay me some more or give me a couple of weeks extra holiday at the end of the academic year once the marking is done (I think I’m going to opt for the latter). So thanks for your comments helping me to make that step.
This leads me to point 3. I suppose my use of the word boredom was a subconscious manifestation of the very resistance to being with myself that you speak of. As you say, a true meditative experience would be very interesting. Indeed, while not going to that deeper level just mentioned, last night I was listening to some meditations you recommended and became so relaxed I fell asleep and decided to get an early night. It is so strange that while I like to think that I can examine issues such as politics, religion and philosophy from many different perspectives, questioning something as seemingly every-day as work with all its taken-for-granted terminology is very difficult. In that sense it operates at a far deeper ideological level than, say, “Liberalism” or even “capitalism” itself does. For example, just glancing through my earlier post I can see it’s replete with unintentional “workisms”, “having engaged with your work”, being one such example.
Andrew, thank you again for your help. I’m looking forward to exploring and reflecting further with the links you’ve provided and reading the other articles on your website (I also have the e-books you kindly sent me yet to read). I’m sat here in rainy but cosy England and visualising the rugged yet awe-inspiring landscape of the American Southwest and I’m wishing and hoping you have a lovely week ahead.
You provide more clues to thinking, and feeling, your way into being hard on yourself here when you talk about 'lack of common sense' (paragraph 3 in reference to pt. 5) and about your "self-assessment" not even being true (paragraph 1). It would lovely if you were to ask yourself apropos yourself, "Is the way I'm thinking about myself accurate? Is it true?" A good start at a conceptual level would be to slowly adjust your understanding of yourself vis-a-vis yourself and vis-a-vis others. You'll see that the love of truth will slowly loosen the grip of the stern hand hellbent on being hard (about which more under II. below). After all, it's not common sense that has gone on holiday in paragraph 3. What has, as it were, gone on holiday was a gentle, loving understanding of yourself and of what you actually do. That's what is so surprising! You were SOOOO FAR off the mark with regard to accuracy about your own contributions! Gently examine that errancy and see why it's so.
II. INTROSPECTION AS A NEW ART
Near the end, you write, "It is so strange that while I like to think that I can examine issues such as politics, religion and philosophy from many different perspectives, questioning something as seemingly every-day as work with all its taken-for-granted terminology is very difficult."
Let (e.g.) politics, religion, philosophy (in an academic sense), sociology, psychology, and so on be regarded as OBJECTIVE PHENOMENA. Let introspection (or "spirituality" or call it what you will) be regarded as a PURELY SUBJECTIVE INVESTIGATION. (I'm partially borrowing this distinction from, e.g., Atmananda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmananda_Krishna_Menon.)
Then, it's worth seeing, the methodologies applied to objective phenomena may not be applicable to subjective phenomena. I gesture in this direction in the opening section of my talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTcnU5S2KiQ.
See, then, that you're learning a new language. "Who am I? What am I?" No academic discussion of psychology or sociology (etc.) will help you lean into this metaphysical question.
See, therefore, how being hard on yourself is surfacing again, albeit in a subtler form. If you re-read these words, "It is so strange that while I like to think that I can examine issues such as politics, religion and philosophy from many different perspectives, questioning something as seemingly every-day as work with all its taken-for-granted terminology is very difficult," then you'll get a taste of what I mean. You imply that "I'm dumb" or that "I lack common sense" or that "This should be easy," but that's just not so. It's rather that a completely different investigation has only just begun. Just as we wouldn't expect a child to ride a bike immediately, so we wouldn't expect someone who's just begin the art of introspection to get it "like that!"
Hence, my opening: "Ah, you're really on the [introspective] path! Wonderful!"
On this path, let love, kindness, and a deep love of investigating the truth of what you are guide you. Also, let your ear tune in to yourself when you speak to yourself and to others. Hear--for instance-- when anger, frustration, I-should-know-better, or whatever is creeping in and then come back to the deep love of investigating the truth of what you are. "Who is the witness of this anger arising? If I am not this being hard, then who am I?"
Hi Andrew, happy New Year. This was a beautifully written article. I really liked your summary of how Calvinism supplies the work ethic. As for the hesitancy around marriage, I can relate to the 'optionality' mind-set outlined in option two. I think people get caught in a self-defeating loop of waiting for "the right time" to get married "once everything's in place", but something that changed in my mind before my wife and I got married was to see marriage as a revolutionary act. I can't remember where I read this (maybe Zizek?) but it was actually referring to the anti-colonial struggles of the mid-20th century when many former European colonies gained their independence. Some said that they should've waited until they were 'developed', otherwise they might've fallen into economic difficulties upon independence. But Zizek says no, you can't rationalise like that, you just have to do it, carry out the act and live in the reality it creates and build from there.
The fallacy you mention--waiting for the Right Time to do X once Everthing's in Place--is almost ubiquitous. Since, if Buddhists are correct, anicca (impermanence) is true and since there is no Promised Land here on earth, it stands to reason that one must choose to do X based on other considerations. I appeal to the heart (which I don't equate with the seat of emotions): https://tinyletter.com/andrewjtaggart/letters/according-with-reality-5-my-heart-dwells-in-silence.
Just having a browse and came across your article 'I’m An Anticareerist And You Should Be One Too'. Points four and five in particular addressed some of the thoughts I was musing on earlier. The message I take from them is that I should stop trying to see myself as a professional, perhaps not even as a teacher as such, but as just someone who finds delight in helping the young people in the classroom with me to learn? Yes, that sounds nice...
Hi Andrew, thanks for your tinyletter link. I read your article on the heart. I liked your comment that the heart isn't just sweet, sometimes it gives us warnings that we'd do well to heed. As for my own heart, I didn't mean to suggest that a Zizek article made me decide to marry my wife, ha ha, it was just an interesting metaphor. I suppose that's just my propensity to politicise or 'intellectualise things', something I need to examine perhaps (trying to 'look' smart?).
I also read all your other tinyletters and enjoyed them. I could see how your writing voice has developed over the years. I found the article about the Hopi reservation particularly touching. Your comment in letter 7 about disengaging from current affairs also spoke to me. Sometimes I reflect that if I never read the news there are only one or two events which have happened in 'the news' that have actually impacted directly on my life. Maybe I'd be a lot less anxious if I just didn't read the news. Although that might not be a good thing, maybe I'm too sheltered.
I also read your latest Total Work chapter, so many thoughts here. While reading I felt like I did want to write something deeply introspective to get to the heart of my 'doing' and my relationship towards work, my PhD, blogging, etc (trying to 'look smart', which you can tell I'm not that smart just from my grammar, and that's not me fishing for compliments :) ). Further, while I don't want to be pretentious with myself thinking that I can or should get deeply into mediation (apart from the relaxing Plum Village exercises you recommended), I definitely feel like one entrance point of meditation or reflection for me would be through boredom: flitting from this to that to stave it off. I could really try and experience boredom for 10 minutes without distraction.
As for feeling one has a calling, I've sometimes thought the opposite. In all honesty I was advised to become a teacher after not being great in some other jobs I had. I don't want to be too hard on myself, and I'm only speaking about myself as many of my colleagues are wonderful teachers, but maybe it was a last resort; "those who can't do, teach", right? However, despite at least initially in my own case, far from teaching being seen as a 'calling', over the years I feel like I've actually become a good teacher, it's something I've grown into and enjoy being 'professional' about it, trying to be a better teacher every year. I suppose where I'm at right now having engaged with your work is that yes, I can still be a good teacher, but without working too much. If I can't organise dozens of trips away for my students every year to ever more elaborate places then maybe I just need to accept that and leave it to those that can. I wondered if you had any specific thoughts on how to divest from Total Work for people who work in the public sector, perhaps, or for anyone who has people relying on their work; patients, students, employees?
Anyway, sorry for this post being a bit sloppy. Pretty tired this evening, but I was looking forward to chilling a bit and writing to you and everyone on the forum. Sometimes I'd like to post here or there but I'm a bit hesitant as I don't want people to think, "Oh, not that guy again." I suppose that's why timing is important, as you say. Best, James
Just a coda. I was being sarcastic when I made that '"those who can't do, teach", right?' comment; trying to turn that 'right?' on myself as someone saying that to me and it piercing me, not other teachers, who are good.
Thank you, James, for these reflections. Here are some replies:
1.) To my ear, it sounds as if you're being rather hard on yourself. This is an observation based on *the tone* of these reflections. You might re-read these notes and ask, "If I'm being rather hard on myself, why is that?"
2.) The heart could be the name given to a source of *unified knowing.* (The rational mind is often split, not infrequently in conflict with itself.) Indeed, it is the source wherein there is no sense, e.g., of being hard on oneself or of not being hard on oneself. The heart is peace, is at peace, and is an expression of peace.
3.) I like this: "I could really try and experience boredom for 10 minutes without distraction." In other words, I could try to be *with myself* for 10 minutes. I don't know how Johannes Niederhauser would define boredom, but I'd say, quite simply, that boredom = a resistance to a mildly discomforting situation. So, the key is that there's resistance. And that resistance quite often is not specifically to do with not doing something (interesting) but with being with myself. (The first bit--not doing something--is often the reason we give ourselves for what goes unsaid--I feel that I cannot be with myself.)
If I may gently joke, I'd say that the only trouble with this meditation is that once you start taking an interest in your own thoughts, feelings, etc. from the standpoint of the witness, the situation is no longer boring! In fact, it's quite interesting!
4.) Being, say, a wonderful teacher does not mean, as you well know, doing lots and lots of things with or for your students. What students will invariably remember about you is what it was like to be in your presence. I once had a mentor in college. She got cancer and died, quite unexpectedly, a few years after I graduated. I don't remember all the writing tips she shared with me; I remember what it was like to be with her. This is what I miss.
5.) Coming now to the anticareerism piece: Let's observe that "having a career" is basically a way of believing and feeling oneself to be self-important. This is too bad. Careerism is at once a jejune and a hifalutin answer to the question: "What does it mean to lead a good life?" Therefore, why not just drop the whole story?
You write, "The message I take from them is that I should stop trying to see myself as a professional, perhaps not even as a teacher as such, but as just someone who finds delight in helping the young people in the classroom with me to learn?"
Yes. Yes, you can hold "being a teacher" in one of two ways. The first way: Just drop the identity ("being a teacher," "being a professional"--here, cheekily, see: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/were-supposed-fing-professionals-andrew-taggart/), and be lovingly and kindly involved in acts of learning, listening, understanding, and so on without having to attach yourself to the identity--being a teacher, being a good teacher, being a great teacher, etc. Laozi, of The Daodejing, once spoke of "creating without possessing" and afterward of "forgetting." Laozi created without holding onto the identity of the creator.
The second way: When you're at a dinner party or some social gathering and someone asks you "what you do," you can say, "I'm a teacher." Yet when you say this, you realize that it's only conventionally true, not ultimately true. In consequence, you don't *actually* take *the being* of "I" to be equivalent to "teacher." For you, it's just a manner of speaking that makes sense to your interlocutor.
6.) Consider the possibility, also written about The Daodejing, that "the highest goodness flows like water." What would it be like for us not to be egoically hard on ourselves but to be seamlessly, lovingly in tune with life such that life quite often felt as if it were flowing water? Here's a taste, from 2012, of what I mean: https://andrewjtaggart.com/2012/05/15/ethical-life-restored-vii/.
Thank you again. My heart goes out to you. With all my kindness,
Andrew
Dear Andrew, thanks so much for your detailed, warm and helpful reply. To take points 1, 2 and 4 together, yes, I am being too hard on myself. When I reflect on why this is, a good part of it comes from the top down, of feeling the need to impress my departmental heads and to be in competition with myself for their attention and approval (something I need to explore in a later post for sure). Not only am I looking in the wrong direction, but my self-assessment is not even true. I have had many many students tell me over the years that they have enjoyed my classes. Indeed, one of the best things is to receive a thank you card at the end of the academic year. It may sound small but sometimes I'm so glad of that I just have to go outside and have a walk around as I feel so elated. I can imagine that your college mentor friend received many such thanks and would surely be proud of your ability to help people through words.
As for moving out of the rigid role of “teacher”, again, you’re precisely right. One of the things I find most enjoyable about being in class is when you get to know a class and people become comfortable and - although always maintaining a responsible outlook – you begin to see each other less in that potentially antagonistic student/teacher dichotomy and more just as human beings. For example, I love the moments during a class when the “students” have been “working on” an “activity” (I’ll use those words for now, I know that the entire point of education is a big question that I need to ask myself; “education for what, to what ends? To just become another consumer?”, but I’m not sure how to phrase that question just yet – not that we aren’t engaged in enriching learning in class, I think we are), yet there’s a lull in the tempo and it seems appropriate to just have a chat and a laugh about something silly like conspiracy theories or the latest films/tv shows they've seen.
Coming to point 5, your advice has had really positive benefits for me. I had a meeting with one of my managers last week and it turns out that I am over 150% “over utilised” (now there’s a Total Work phrase!) in terms of my teaching hours. This means I’ve been teaching over 1 and a half job’s worth of lessons. No wonder I’ve been feeling stressed out! This came about because I teach across two different sectors in the college’s Further Education and Higher Education departments and I hadn’t really clicked that this would add up to so many extra hours; common sense isn’t my strong point, ha ha, just ask anyone in my family. The short of it is that college are going to either pay me some more or give me a couple of weeks extra holiday at the end of the academic year once the marking is done (I think I’m going to opt for the latter). So thanks for your comments helping me to make that step.
This leads me to point 3. I suppose my use of the word boredom was a subconscious manifestation of the very resistance to being with myself that you speak of. As you say, a true meditative experience would be very interesting. Indeed, while not going to that deeper level just mentioned, last night I was listening to some meditations you recommended and became so relaxed I fell asleep and decided to get an early night. It is so strange that while I like to think that I can examine issues such as politics, religion and philosophy from many different perspectives, questioning something as seemingly every-day as work with all its taken-for-granted terminology is very difficult. In that sense it operates at a far deeper ideological level than, say, “Liberalism” or even “capitalism” itself does. For example, just glancing through my earlier post I can see it’s replete with unintentional “workisms”, “having engaged with your work”, being one such example.
Andrew, thank you again for your help. I’m looking forward to exploring and reflecting further with the links you’ve provided and reading the other articles on your website (I also have the e-books you kindly sent me yet to read). I’m sat here in rainy but cosy England and visualising the rugged yet awe-inspiring landscape of the American Southwest and I’m wishing and hoping you have a lovely week ahead.
Dear James,
Ah, you're really on the path! Wonderful!
I. BECOMING CLEAR-EYED ABOUT ONESELF
You provide more clues to thinking, and feeling, your way into being hard on yourself here when you talk about 'lack of common sense' (paragraph 3 in reference to pt. 5) and about your "self-assessment" not even being true (paragraph 1). It would lovely if you were to ask yourself apropos yourself, "Is the way I'm thinking about myself accurate? Is it true?" A good start at a conceptual level would be to slowly adjust your understanding of yourself vis-a-vis yourself and vis-a-vis others. You'll see that the love of truth will slowly loosen the grip of the stern hand hellbent on being hard (about which more under II. below). After all, it's not common sense that has gone on holiday in paragraph 3. What has, as it were, gone on holiday was a gentle, loving understanding of yourself and of what you actually do. That's what is so surprising! You were SOOOO FAR off the mark with regard to accuracy about your own contributions! Gently examine that errancy and see why it's so.
II. INTROSPECTION AS A NEW ART
Near the end, you write, "It is so strange that while I like to think that I can examine issues such as politics, religion and philosophy from many different perspectives, questioning something as seemingly every-day as work with all its taken-for-granted terminology is very difficult."
Let (e.g.) politics, religion, philosophy (in an academic sense), sociology, psychology, and so on be regarded as OBJECTIVE PHENOMENA. Let introspection (or "spirituality" or call it what you will) be regarded as a PURELY SUBJECTIVE INVESTIGATION. (I'm partially borrowing this distinction from, e.g., Atmananda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmananda_Krishna_Menon.)
Then, it's worth seeing, the methodologies applied to objective phenomena may not be applicable to subjective phenomena. I gesture in this direction in the opening section of my talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTcnU5S2KiQ.
See, then, that you're learning a new language. "Who am I? What am I?" No academic discussion of psychology or sociology (etc.) will help you lean into this metaphysical question.
See, therefore, how being hard on yourself is surfacing again, albeit in a subtler form. If you re-read these words, "It is so strange that while I like to think that I can examine issues such as politics, religion and philosophy from many different perspectives, questioning something as seemingly every-day as work with all its taken-for-granted terminology is very difficult," then you'll get a taste of what I mean. You imply that "I'm dumb" or that "I lack common sense" or that "This should be easy," but that's just not so. It's rather that a completely different investigation has only just begun. Just as we wouldn't expect a child to ride a bike immediately, so we wouldn't expect someone who's just begin the art of introspection to get it "like that!"
Hence, my opening: "Ah, you're really on the [introspective] path! Wonderful!"
On this path, let love, kindness, and a deep love of investigating the truth of what you are guide you. Also, let your ear tune in to yourself when you speak to yourself and to others. Hear--for instance-- when anger, frustration, I-should-know-better, or whatever is creeping in and then come back to the deep love of investigating the truth of what you are. "Who is the witness of this anger arising? If I am not this being hard, then who am I?"
With all my kindness,
Andrew