Of the many contributions Robert Heinlein made to the world, I think the word ‘grok‘ is my personal favorite.
Grok (pronounced grock) is a verb roughly meaning “to understand completely” or more formally “to achieve complete intuitive understanding”. It was coined by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land, where it is part of the fictional Martian language and introduced to English speakers by a man raised by Martians.
It should be made clear that there is no exact definition for grok; it is a fictional word intended not to be “understood completely”.
In the Martian tongue, it literally means “to drink” but is used in a much wider context. A character in the novel (not the primary user) defines it:
“Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because we are from Earth) as color means to a blind man.”
I’m working my way through the last few chapters of my MAT097 (Elementary Algebra) assignments (factoring, rational expressions, working my way towards quadratic equations), and while it’s not quite as difficult as it was back in high school, and as long as I follow the patterns, plug all the numbers and letters in the right places, and don’t make any stupid mistakes swapping positive and negative signs around, then I end up getting the right answers more often than not.
But I sure don’t grok it. Don’t think I ever will, either.
Still…as long as I’m getting the right answers the majority of the time, then I’m doing okay. Not great…but okay. And that’s fine with me.
“Groove Radio pres. House (full mix)” by Various Artists from the album Groove Radio pres. House (full mix) (1997, 1:13:46).