The Continental philosopher Hegel, said something once about the development of mind. He came up with a three-stage, as per his dialectic, journey of the growth of one's skill sets as a human. We always have a totality of tools, we cope with, especially nowadays.
But what Hegel says is the journey going from a novice to a Master, is threefold.
If you'll allow me. . .
We start in the growth of a skill set in what's known as lower immediacy. It's essentially original sin & lack of comprehension. It's when we have the morals of a spoiled child. It's when we are viscerally ignorant.
Then this ignorant mind meets mediation. Mediation is the second step in the Hegelian synthesis I guess you could say an antithesis to the unconditioned juvinile mind. So when you're an infant, comprehension of the world starts in school, one's mind is thrown into a process of sophisticating the ethical mind, developing morals in an honor-based society, and eventually attaining the third step in this dialectic.
That is the step of higher immediacy!
If you look at Zen & The art of the Archer, a novice is in the lower immediacy orientation of shooting a bow and arrow. After a long extended period of mediation, Hegel called it, one reaches to higher immediacy where the mind is as synchronous in a pure way as it was in lower immediacy. So essentially the first phase of this dialectic is identical to the third phase, only having been refined into rasas.
So as we look at this dialectic we say how long does it take to become a master? I know I'd like to be a master at what I do! So how long does it truly take to become a master?
The answer in an honor basis driven society, is decades!
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