My name is Russell Allen Smith. I stumbled upon the Gurdjieff work in the late 1970s, and saw so many great truths contained therein that I didn’t want to do anything else but study myself. Thus, from that day forward, I spent every waking moment observing my mechanicality. I read for hours on end and tried to remember myself for months and months and months. Then, in 1980, my Higher Emotional Center, unexpectedly, out of nowhere, began to function… and I became self-conscious.