Extract From Simone Weil's Waiting On God

Overview of extract from Simone Weil’s “Waiting on God” Simone Weil was a French philosopher who shed more light on human labor and school studies. She spent her life advocating for the poor and bravely organizing and writing on their behalf. In her essay “Reflections on the right use of school studies with a view to the love of God” she discusses the importance of attention and the development it brings to the soul. She shares certain recommended but perhaps unpopular mindsets students should have concerning school studies. One of them is that attention involves more of waiting than searching; waiting with a minimal thought of the knowledge we have. Another striking point she made is that the effort of attention is never wasted. It is used
A good illustration is solving a geometry problem. Attention requires focusing on the “data of the question” without trying to find its solution; a process of just absorbing the question and its containment and waiting on the truth. This however requires a great deal of humility. Sometimes, we are tempted to think we “know it all”, but end up realizing we know nothing at all. I once had a teacher who would always tell the class to drop everything we think we knew outside, and step into the class empty. Reading this essay finally made me realize why he always said that. Weil describes attention as “suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty, and ready to be penetrated by the object”. This makes room for incoming revelation while having the knowledge we have acquired settle at the background”. She gives a brilliant description of a man on a mountain surrounded by many forests. He is aware of these forests but refuses to focus his attention on them. Rather, he looks forward to what is before him. This depicts that we should have our knowledge at a lower pedestal when
It’s easy to neglect the answer as it comes due to our immense quest for it. Most times when students are asked to pay attention, they only contract their muscles. This illusion has us bound till today. I can totally relate to this muscle contraction she talks about. It makes one have a sense of duty done, even when we’ve only just scratched the surface. Acquisition of answers or information can be looked upon as a one-way process. Hence, it is best to be attentive to the problem and allow its answers come to you; not let the zeal of acquiring it cover up its simplicity that we dive into it treacherously. That produces a counterfeit that would prematurely block the pathway. Another illustration is in writing a paper. Most times, we just need to exercise faith and allow the information come to us before we flood the paper with the random thoughts that block the pathway of productive