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

as a supplement to the used-up products for the requirements of Hell.Speaking shortly, this attitude of mine in respect of meeting andconversing with all kinds of people became from the first year of mywriting activity firmly established in the course of my externalautomatic life, and I tried not to change it until several months prior tomy last journey to America: namely, when I had finished theexposition in its first draft of all the material which I had planned towrite, the first series in its final form, the second in its first version andthe third at least partly written.The second of the facts I mentioned was that, while the acuteness ofmy memory in connection with the questions of writing had becomesharpened during my writing activities to an extraordinary degree, sothat, for instance, I always could and even now still can rememberwhere, in which notebook out of many thousands I have filled up, andin what connection with another thought a particular thought isexpressed and has to be repeated in a different form and precisely inwhat other place, and could and even still can remember on which ofthe already tens of thousands of pages of the notebooks I have filledup, in which sentence and in which word there were letters Iautomatically wrote strangely incorrectly, yet at the same time, duringthis period, when I unavoidably had to meet new people, there wasscarcely a single meeting or even a single conversation—whichformerly would have unfailingly made an impression on me—whichmade any impression at all on my memory; and even on the next day,when it was sometimes indispensable for me to remember it, I couldnot with all my desire and tenseness, remember anything at all aboutthe meetings and conversations which had taken place only the daybefore.But when, due to nearing the completion of my expositions,