DE - BEGINNERS DO EASY

WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS, from EXTERMINATOR!(edit)

      DE is a way of doing. It is a way of doing everything you do. DE simply means doing whatever you do in the easiest most relaxed way you can manage which is also the quickest and most efficient way as you will find as you advance in DE.
      You can start right now tidying up your flat, moving furniture or books, washing dishes, making tea, sorting papers. Consider the weight of objects exactly how much force is needed to get the object from here to there. Consider its shape and texture and function where exactly does it belong. Use just the amount of force necessary to get the object from here to there. Don’t fumble jerk grab an object. Drop cool possessive fingers onto it like a gentle old cop making soft arrest. Guide a dustpan lightly to the floor as if you were landing a plane. When you touch an object weigh it with your fingers feeling your fingers on the object the skin blood muscles tendons of your hand and arm. Consider these extensions of yourself as precision instruments to perform every movement smoothly and well....
      Remember every object has its place. If you don’t find that place and put that thing there it will jump out at you and trip you or rap you painfully across the knuckles. It will nudge you and clutch at you and get in your way. Often such objects belong in the wastebasket but often it’s just that they are out of place.........
      If you rap your knuckles against a window jamb or door, if you brush your leg against a desk or a bed, if you catch your feet in the curled-up corner of a rug, or strike your toe against a desk or chair go back and repeat the sequence. You will be surprised to find how far off course you were to hit that window jamb that door that chair. Get back on course and do it again. How can you pilot a spacecraft if you can’t find your way around your own apartment? It’s just like retaking a movie shot until you get it right. And you will begin to feel yourself in a movie moving with ease and speed. But don't try for speed at first. Try for relaxed smoothness taking as much time as you need to perform action.
      If you drop an object, break an object, spill anything, knock painfully against anything, galvanically clutch an object, pay particular attention to retake. You may find out why and forestall a repeat performance. If the object is broken sweep up pieces and remove from the room at once. If object is intact or you have duplicate object repeat sequence. You may experience a strange feeling as if the objects are alive and hostile trying to twist out of your fingers, slam noisily down at a table, jump out at you and stub your toe and trip you. Repeat sequence until objects are brought to order.........
      You will discover clumsy things you've been doing for years until you think that is just the way things are.........
      Now someone will say... "But if I have to think about every move I make"...You only have to think and break down movement into a series of still pictures to be studied and corrected because you have not found the easy way. Once you find the easy way you don't have to think about it. It will almost do itself....
      Everyday tasks become painful and boring because you think of them as WORK something solid and heavy to be fumbled and stumbled over. Overcome this block and you will find that DE can be applied to anything you do even to the final discipline of doing nothing. The easier you do it the less you have to do. He who has learned to do nothing with his whole mind and body will have everything done for him.........
      The beginner can think of DE as a game. You are running an obstacle course the obstacles set up by your opponent. As soon as you attempt to put DE into practice you will find that you have an opponent very clever and persistent and resourceful with detailed expert knowledge of diverting your attention for the moment necessary for you to drop a plate on the kitchen floor. Who or what is this opponent who makes you spill drop and fumble slip and fall?........
      These skills belong to you. Make them yours. You know where the wastebasket is. You can land an object in the wastebasket over your shoulder. You know how to touch and move and pick up things. Regaining these physical skills is of course simply a prelude to regaining other skills and other knowledge that you have but cannot make available for use. You know your entire past history just what year month day and hour everything happened. If you have heard a language for any length of time you know that language. You have a computer in your brain. DE will show you how to use it. But that's another chapter. EASY DOES IT. DOO DEE DOO. DO EASY.