Thursday, September 20, 2007

Relection on Normal alienation from experience

I personally find what the author of this piece is saying to be true. We are all taught to focus on only a few things in life, thus causing us to lose sight our what we can feel. Now that I'm in between being a child and an adult I do see me losing parts of myself. But from what I've noticed taking place I must ask this question: How do we go about regaining what we've lost? Especially when we are constantly bombarded with the forces that caused us to be this way in the first place. The best answer that I've been able to create on my own is that we must consciously take a step back, and remind ourselves to look at whats around us. And then, after we've done that, we must try our best to analyze what things truly are. But of course, this is easier said than done, and we can never fully grasp reality to its fullest degree, but at least we've done something rather than nothing. If we do this we've taken the first steps. And if enough of us do this, we may be able to give this world a better version of ourselves that it so readily deserves.

“We act in accordance to how we see things thus if our experiences are destroyed, our behavior will be destructive.”

This is the line that I feel that, if for nothing else, must be understood by all those who reads it. And it acts as the back bone to my statement above. It is the reason why shifting our outlook on the world is so important. Because how we act and what we do relies so much on what we perceive, changing perception affects everything with our lives. Hence why one must make sure that they are aiming for something more positive in order to receive positive thoughts and actions. If not then they are only leading themselves down the ladder that should be meant to climb upward. For as bad as we are now, we've yet to yet rock bottom, so we must keep our heads at least above water and keep moving forward to prevent that.


Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Summary of Normal alienation from experience

The task is to notice and understand the world around us in its entirety. But we can't do this. We only can grasp bits and pieces of what is really there.

Adults have lost their awareness of their inner thoughts. And in terms of the body, they keep enough sensations to move correctly and to allow the most basic feelings for survival. But from that they have nothing else. So much so, that much extensive levels of un-learning is needed for anyone who wishes to see the world a new.

The way that things are now expresses a sad destruction of our experience, the consequence of the separation from our experiences. “What we think of as normal is nothing more than a creation of repression, denial, and many other actions of demolition.” And its this kind of “normal” that tends to look down on others. The normally alienated people, because they act like everyone else, is labeled as sane, while others outside of this are bad or mad.

“The state of being asleep, unconscious, of being out of one's mind, is the state of the normal person.”

We act in accordance to how we see things thus if our experiences are destroyed, our behavior will be destructive. We also will have lost our true self – our humanity. People can destroy humanity in each other because we are not separated from one another. Every action we do to others changes them in some way.

We act on what we see the world as, and this rule is even true when things conceal themselves from us rather than shows us its true colors. We are not capable of thinking about the actions that are bringing us to this dangerous thin line. We are less than what we can be because what we think is smaller than what we know, which when it boils down to it, is smaller than what really is there.

However, there is a chance, a possibility when a new baby is born. A retrieval may take place. Every new kid is a new light that can stand out in the darkness. Who are we to say that it is hopeless?