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gypsygrl -> RE: Understanding ruins experience? (1/10/2007 9:41:05 AM)
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Remember when you followed all the clues and it led you to figuring out Mom and Dad were Santa Claus? Did it make you happy to know that?
Personally, I didn't follow any clues. I followed an older sibling, who showed me where the presents were hidden. I didn't have a whole lot of say in my discovery that there was no Santa Clause. I can't say I was happy in the moment but I can't say it did me any harm either. And, I've had plenty of good christmasses since then and even a couple of good solstices.
I suppose a lot of it depends on where you put the "weight" of the experience, if that makes any sense. I get as much out of thinking about it as I do in the experience itself.
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In the beginning I needed to understand a great deal more than now. Partly because I was a total newbie with damn little knowledge and partly because by hearing his explanations I learned that he did know what he was doing and that it was safe to trust him.
I agree that, in a general sense, making sure someone knows what they're doing by asking a lot of questions and getting explanations, is important in feeling "safe" and creating trust particularly if a relationship or activity is new. I have to trust myself before I can trust anyone else, and part of that is making sure I have a basic grasp of what's going on which means I've done some homework. I just can't run willy nilly into high water without at least getting a rough estimate of how deep it is even if it turns out the water is a lot deeper than I thought.
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If I am half as good as they say I am, I should be able to explain it in detail before hand, and still blow her mind when I do it...
*smiles*
It probably goes without saying that that's magic taken a step beyond reasonable expectation. Which does blow the mind.
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I think understanding leads to consciousness and consciousness leads to a more powerful exchange.
Wow. There it is in a single sentence. :)
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As for our our analytical little OP ... maybe if you bracketed that analysis for a while and moved instead toward a hermeneutic interpretation?
Yes, thats where I always end up. Verstehen. :)
My use of the word "analytical," besides just being kind of lazy, is probably best understood in contrast to "synthetic" as I'm really good at working with clearly highly bound units of experience but get lost as soon as I move beyond whats immediately contained in that unit. I can break things down after the fact, but when it comes to putting things back together in a new way and moving forward in the direction of something else, well, it doesn't happen. I don't do synthesis. I leave that to someone else. But, my analyses are very hermaneutic, and try to take the given 'text' (to use SusanO's metaphore) on its own terms. I keep thinking I should have framed the issue in terms of "interpreting experience" because its more precise that the idea of trying to figure it out.
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I expect that your musing about those events is kind of rewarding in itself; that it is something like fun. I imagine that you might be pleased if in these musings you notice a new way that This sheds light on That, affirms an understanding you have been carrying or challenges one in a way that smells fruitful.
My immediate response to the general idea that "understanding ruins an experience" was "Huh? thats what makes it all the more fun!"
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although that doesn't mean that you and I are safe from Science,
Nobody's ever safe from science, if you ask me. But, thats my special paranoia.
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People, I think, can and are writing the novel of their own lives - every day they live - they can make things have a happy beginning, or middle, or end, simply by the way they choose to veiw events and the context in which they put these things indie their own heads. Including their impressions of themselves.
I love this metaphor, though I think there's room for lots of different kinds of stories besides happy ones. The tragic and the sublime can be just as awesome as the pleasant, to say nothing of the comic. And, most really good, mind blowing, stories contain a mix.
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Hope that even made sense - it got a little long-winded.
It was a cool read. :)
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