Friday 27 January 2012

Subjectivity of thought

I know I've mentioned the whole "uniqueness of how you view the world" thing before, but this time what I find interesting is how the experiences people go through shape their view of the world, or rather lack of experiences. With my deadmou5 pumped up and about an hour till my next class I'm damn excited to blog... 

So I mentioned before that everyone has this unique "thing" in their heads and that little guy sitting in your head lets you see the world through your own eyes...it is wholly and completely your own world. It sounds so simple..."wholly and completely your own world" but its complexities astound me (a lot....I-I just don't know where to start). I know you think the world you see is the world that's external from you but is it really that simple? The world you see is pretty much a construction of your mind (yeah...sensation and perception goodies...but I don't just mean it in terms of biology) I also mean it in terms of an individual’s thought processes, motives and intentions. 

So this summer I came to the realization that people are very different... (I know I am such a friggen genius right?) But not just in personality but attached to that is their view of the world. The motives behind what I do are completely different form other peoples... (another.. DUHhhh moment right?). But it’s just an interesting concept with a simple idea. 

So I worked with this crazy psychopathic freak this summer (here's your introduction, cue music). The dude was a complete douche. William, if your reading this...you're an asshole.. (this calls for a happy face! :D). I don't think I have ever met anyone so stuck in their own head. But this extreme state of being "stuck in his own head" made me realize the uniqueness of human motivation. Motivations seem to be caused by a bunch of things, but what I'm interested in is defiantly the emotional aspects. For instance, this guy I worked with seemed to have these intense views of the world and from what I have derived they were all fuelled by his competitive nature and insecurities (but I won’t ever really know *sigh*). But in turn it seemed like he thought I was just as competitive as he was and he constantly tried things that ...just ended up confusing me. For example he tried to show me how great he was at what he did by putting down what I did and explaining that his way is ultimately better. I am open to taking suggestions but in my opinion, respect is a must. But it wasn't even that he simply stated what he did was better... it was like he was trying to instigate me into saying something (this is the part where I would get confused) Till this day...I really don't know what he wanted to hear…if I knew life would have been easier and I could have just said it. -__- jez… people are so complex.

So the point that I'm trying to get at here is that when we are in our own heads we assume the world thinks like us. Since everyone is technically in their own head (with varying degrees of course, some people being more aware then others) we end up thinking people have the same motives. At least I know I end up thinking this a lot. When I was young my mom always said that "only a lire suspects their loved ones lie to them". When you think about it...life is really just in your head and your views of others are a simple reflection of what and how you think. That's probably why I stay weary of people that constantly think someone is conspiring against them... assuming intentions is really the worst thing a person can do because the truth is... we really have no frikken idea.

Look at children for example, I think we have a rough idea of the complexities behind a 6 year olds inner workings. Have you noticed some of these kids view another child in the same way that they, quite obviously, think. To me the first thing that comes to mind when I think of children is innocence. Kids remain, to a certain extent, uncorrupted by society’s freakish nature (I think the more I grew, the more disappointed I became…as sad as that sounds). But the main thing I’m throwing at you here is that their righteous view of the world is because of their own point of view, that is, one of innocence. To further illustrate this somewhat ambiguous idea with my terrible English imnaa hitchyouu with an example. My cousin, now 6 …or 7, quite honestly I think I lost count after her 3rd birthday, also has an innocent way of viewing the world. I am going to sound uber evil…but have you ever tried telling a kid some really messed up scary story…just to see how they’ll react? (you know you’ve done this at one point or another…) But I mean…have you noticed their reactions?

Rav: “Well Celina, the monster then shot the little girl…and she died. Remember that friend of the girl, who she thought was her bestfriend?…yeah she left her there to die and ran…..fast.”

Celina: “wh…why?” *big hopeful eyes*

Rav: “because her friend was EVIL!…”

Celina: “I think her friend was just running to get help”

Rav *thinks*: “GAh…I surrender to thy innocence!”

(this may or may not be a slight exaggeration of what really happened)

The point of this is that…she didn’t assume evil intentions because she didn’t think that way herself…that truly fills me up with hearts…

This post is getting very long but I just need to mention the importance of experience in motivation that is pushed by emotion. What I mean by this is that when there is an emotional basis for something (for example an insecurity) you are more likely to notice certain aspects of that situation that pull at these emotional strings and thus add to your experience in how you view the world. That certain event may not mean the same thing as it would for another who does not share that insecurity or emotion. For example, there was a woman with albinism on the Tyra show once (where the heck did that show go anyways?). This woman was extremely sensitive about her disorder and so viewed the world in accordance to her insecurity. She said that in society “only dark skinned brunets are considered beautiful”. All I could think was… “lady have you heard of racism?”. Tyra remarked that usually the blue-eyed blonds were the ones that were idealized in society, but it’s interesting how you can view the world so differently. So it was a simple insecurity that changed how that woman viewed the world. To her this was the truth: that light skin is not valued (which is understandable considering her emotions on the topic) but this just shows (in an extreme example) the subjectivity of how we all perceive the world…

To end off I guess alls I can say is it seems like who we are on the inside is reflected in how we see the world and its people. And the emotions we hold on the inside fuel the importance of our experiences, which all contribute to the damn skippitty dippy subjective view of the world.   

I just want to say…I know someday I will get inside someone else’s head and explore it…like fowshizzle.

And that ladies and gentlemen…fills me up with mad hearts and sheit!

~YE YEE!

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