Tuesday, June 12, 2012

How we Experience the World: Final Exam



The human experience is a jumble of experiences, influences, and our own biological makeup that make each individual special and unique. Evolution has even played a dramatic role in how we now experience the world. First each person has a right and left side of their brain.  Our left side is cognitive and rational, while our right side is creative and artistic. Having both rational and creative functions in our brains allows us to live a more balanced and functioning life. The left side is the analytical side that we use for math equations, interpreting, and solving everyday problems. The right side is the portion of the brain that allows us to be imaginative and create beautiful pieces of art. It is the emotional half of our mind. Now when writing was introduced into our culture, it changed the way we act, think, and experience the world. We transformed from drawing pictures on cave walls to tell a story to using letters with no image attachment to do the same thing. So our brains went from emotionally interpreting images (right side) to reading phonetics. This in turn made us a lot more left sided, meaning we became much more analytical because we didn’t have the images constantly in our every day life.

Now besides our biological and evolutionary influences, sacred space and nature play a tremendous role in how we experience life. One’s sacred space is what is natural to them. It could be a religious sanctuary of theirs, a special open field that they know of, or simply their bed in their room. It is different for every individual and is where he/she goes to find peace and escape reality. The world is a complex and confusing place and without one’s sacred place, we would become overwhelmed and lost. The most common generalized sacred place is nature. People view nature as pure and innocent, therefore the perfect place to escape from the traffic of our daily lives. When something is as pure and untouched as nature, individuals strive to become as close to that thing as possible. That is done in a multitude of ways. Some become natural themselves, eliminating any artificial or superficial quality that they may possess. Others just go to nature to bring themselves back to a place internally that they want to be at. All are marvelous ways that we as humans keep ourselves in check and able ourselves to keep on living and experiencing fully.

When we are out in the real world we experience love and beauty everyday, and each human being has their own interpretation of what that is. This makes every person experience those qualities of life diversely. Beauty can be inside (personality) and/or outside (appearance). Beauty can also be what is pure and innocent or what is natural. It all depends on the individual and what their interpretations are. For me I experience beauty as a combination of all of those things. I think that beauty is what is natural, but it is also appearances and how a person acts. Beauty is superficial and deep to me. But if one is overriding the other, then something may become ugly even though one aspect of themselves is beautiful. For example if a girl is immensely gorgeous and pleasing to the eye on the outside, but they a cruel and ruthless person on the inside, then they become ugly because their inner self is taking over. Beauty has a huge role with love and can affect one falling in or out of love. When something is beautiful we want to possess it and have it for ourselves, thus gravitating to approach that special thing. Once we acquire it, a lot of us think that we are in love, which we may be truly feeling that, but what that really is your body acknowledging that you have accomplished what you set out to do. We tend to fall out love because that person we have such strong feelings for has given up on trying and are not the same diamond that you may have once found. Love is, I think, the topic and experience in a person’s journey that causes the most ups and downs and effects in one’s life.

Law and ethics play a huge role in the human experience because they dictate what we can and cannot allow ourselves to do and everyone has their own opinion on what they should be. The most influential concept in regards to law and ethics is religion. America says that we are not suppose to mix religion and government, but religion is what convinces us of what is right and wrong, so it is predominately influencing our decisions when it comes to our laws. The bible goes through a list of things that is right or wrong and also has consequences for sinning, the holiness code. This forces us to create our own set of ethics and boundaries that we must follow in order to achieve entrance into heaven. Even though there is a set moral code, every one has a different interpretation of that code, creating a diversified community, all thinking that they are doing right. Who really knows if there is a god or heaven, but everyone in one way or another strives to get there by being a ‘good’ person. Who wants to go to Hell right?

To bring this all to an end, everything that we experience in society, love, beauty, nature, sacred space, evolution, law, and ethics create our own personal inner journey that make our worldly experience unique to ourselves. While the craziness of society is happening around us, we are having our own inner experience that no one else can feel but you. One can try to explain it, but not a single person, no matter how much of an understanding they may have, can truly know and feel what you are describing. This is because we all have different minds and therefore interpret things differently. For example in Hamlet, Hamlet’s feelings for Oephelia are more out of lust than love, while she is madly in love with him and naively falls for his trickery. This just goes to show that everyone is experiencing the same exact situation differently, creating a wonderful place where there is a unique situation everywhere you turn.

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