GURDJIEFF, G.I. – Life is real only then, when I am - Integral Book

was not a 'blood brother' of his and, in the second place, he could notpossibly know or feel what attitude the person to whom he addressedhis flowery speech had toward the event."His words were spoken quite mechanically, without the leastparticipation of his being, and he said them only because, in hischildhood, his nurse had taught him in such cases 'to lift the right legand not the left.'"But why be insincere even in those cases when there is absolutelyno advantage in it for your being, not even for the satisfaction of youregoism?"Is it not enough that our daily life is filled to overflowing withinsincerity, thanks to the abnormally established habits of our mutualrelationships?"Unfailingly to express sympathy at the death of anyone or anybodyis just such a vicious habit, instilled in childhood, thanks to the totalityof which our half-intentional actions come to an automatic end."To express one's sympathy to someone in the case of the death of aperson close to him was considered in ancient times an immoral, evencriminal action."Perhaps it was considered so because it is easily possible that, in thebeing of that person who is being thus addressed, the process of thefresh impression of the loss of a close person has not yet quieted down,and by these empty words of sympathy he is reminded of it again andhis suffering aroused anew."From such a habit, customary at the present time in the case ofanyone's death, no one derives any benefit, and the person thusaddressed, only great harm."Such habits, established in contemporary life, offend me especially,perhaps because I have had the opportunity of becoming acquaintedwith the customs used in the same cases in the lives of people wholived many centuries before us.