A World of Impressions

We all have had experiences that left us with impressions: a walk in the woods, a surprise birthday party, a delicious meal. Each impression is like an internal snapshot of the experience, etched into our memory.

Some impressions are strong, and can last for years. Others are less so and fade quickly. Many of our impressions are so weak that they don’t even register in our consciousness. Our mechanical nature determines an impression's strength by how unexpected it is, which explains why first impressions and surprises seem particularly strong. This mechanism is even reflected in our language: when something exceeds our expectations, we call it “impressive”.

Gurdjieff taught that impressions are food. Each impression we receive brings an increased vitality to our life, in proportion to its strength. We can strengthen the quality of our impressions by being attentive to whatever is happening in the present moment, without any expectations about what we might see.

In addition to impressions of our external environment, we can also have impressions of our inner activity: our thoughts, feelings, and reactions to what befalls us. Such impressions result from what Gurdjieff called self-observation—the effort to see ourselves as we are. The Gurdjieff teaching asserts that true self-knowledge comes from accumulating many of these impressions. To be valuable, however, impressions must arise from direct experience, without judgment or intellectual analysis.

There is much we can learn from the study of impressions. Let’s discuss these ideas further and see how they pertain to our daily lives.