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Reading Group
Guide for Learning to Fall A theme and discussion questions are provided for each of the book’s 12 essays. 1. “Learning
to Fall” Theme: Mystery Simmons distinguishes between “problem” and “mystery.” Can you explain
this distinction in your own words? Can you give
examples of “problems” on the one hand, and “mysteries” on the
other? According to
Simmons, what should be our attitude toward mystery?
How easy is
this to do? 2. “Getting
up in the Morning (And Other Essential Duties)” Theme:
Acceptance Simmons writes, “All of us at
certain times in our lives, in the face of failure, loss, illness, and
finally, our certain ends, find ourselves asking: why get up this morning?
And, given what I’m facing, what work is there for me to do in
this world that can possibly make a difference?
Lately I’ve come to feel quite strongly that answering these
questions begins with acceptance. Not
resignation, not passivity, but a profound and thorough acceptance of our
place in the natural order.” What’s the
difference between acceptance on the one hand, and resignation or
passivity on the other? What do you
think Simmons means when he writes, “Death, in other words, is good for
us.”? How does the
turtle exemplify the stoicism of Marcus Aurelius? 3. “In
Praise of the Imperfect Life” Theme: Imperfection Simmons writes that the title of this essay was inspired by a Wallace Stevens poem, whose climactic line is, “The imperfect is our paradise.” What can this
line mean? How does
Simmons’s story of the ant illustrate it? 4. “Unfinished
Houses” Theme:
Unfinished Lives Simmons quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote, “people
wish to be settled; only so far as they are unsettled is there any hope
for them.” What is the
value, according to Simmons, of remaining “unsettled”? Simmons writes, “The present
moment is the unfinished house in which we dwell.”
What
do you think he means by this? How
does he recommend that we live in our unfinished houses and unfinished
lives? What does the
story of Orrin Tilton illustrate? 5. “Wild
Things” Theme:
Wildness What qualities
of wild animals does Simmons admire? Do you agree
that we should become more “wild,” in the way Simmons describes it? 6. “Out
of the Cave” Theme:
Solitude and Community Simmons writes, “[N]othing serves relationships, families, or communities better than a well-cultivated solitude. Having given generously and fully to ourselves, we can give generously and fully to each another and our children and, by extension, to our communities.” Do you agree? What’s the
value of solitude? What’s the
proper relationship between solitude and community?
7. “Mud
Season” Theme:
Resurrections What lessons
does Simmons claim to have learned from mud season? Do you agree
that “in order to be reborn, we first must die”?
Die in what sense? 8. “Choosing
the World” Theme: Ways of
Seeing “Scientific seeing, for good reasons, seeks to fix the world like a bug pinned to a tray, wants to make it fully present to our rational understanding. Mystical seeing, on the other hand, discovers both presence and absence equally.” How does
Simmons distinguish between scientific seeing and mystical seeing? Do you think
everyone has the capacity for mystical seeing, or do only special
individuals have it? 9. “Winter
Mind” Theme:
Emptiness and Silence “Emptiness,
like silence, like love, is not something we choose, not something we
reason our way into, but rather something into which we fall, something in
which we find ourselves.
The fall into emptiness, into silence, has the nature of an
accident. And though we
can’t choose our accidents, we can learn to make ourselves accident
prone. We can point our sleds
downhill.” Why does
Simmons say that the slide into emptiness can be “scary”? What does the
sledding story illustrate? Do you agree
that love is not something we choose or reason our way into? How might this
also be true of the silence and emptiness Simmons is describing? 10. “The
Art of Doing Nothing” Theme:
Busyness “I think if we’re honest with ourselves, we can
agree that our busyness—whether of body or of mind—is often a
distraction, a way of avoiding others, avoiding intimacy, avoiding
ourselves.” Do you agree? How do you
distinguish between necessary, fruitful work and the kind of busyness
Simmons is describing here? The Tao says, “The world is ruled by letting things take their course.” Under what
conditions do you think this is true? 11. “Returning
Home” Themes: Control and Character “Life throws things at us that we cannot predict and cannot control. What we can control is who we are along the way.” Do you agree? To what extent
is your own character under your control? How does
character help us deal with life’s surprises, both good and bad? How useful is
hitchhiking as an analogy for a way to live one’s life? 12. “Living
at the Edge” Theme: Eternal
Life “More and more I find that dwelling in the present moment, in the face of everything that would call us out of it, is our highest spiritual discipline. More boldly, I would say that our very presentness is our salvation; the present moment, entered into fully, is our gateway to eternal life.” What do you
suppose Simmons means when he says, “I want my eternal life now, before
it’s over with.” What sort
of eternal life is he talking about in this essay? What does
Simmons’s story of his encounter with the homeless man illustrate?
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