Do we inherit our views? Are we cursed to live as a sum of those individual views shared with us by those we come to know? Or is there some chance of something more? There are those who tell us that we would even inherit those views which we come upon on our own by means of experience: they become ours by mere endowment. This view disgusts me in the same way that I imagine most people must be revolted by the idea of living without free will - it is not that I have any evidence against it, I simply find the idea abhorrent (As a side note, I do not have this issue with lacking free will: I believe we have it, but would be totally fine if we did not).
The problem is, the idea of inheritance to me implies that it belongs rightly to someone other than myself. For all my love of heritage and legacy, I could not bear to think I had nothing but these. Rather, I would say that we sometimes (I would not dare say how often) do not simply pick up the ideas of those around us. Instead, we observe many ideas, decide on the one that seems truest, and claim it for ourselves. We might even need to wrestle the idea into submission, making them surrender to our other views and adapt as necessary. In this way, cannot our views be truly our own?
Showing posts with label originality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label originality. Show all posts
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Self-Context and Received Texts
I am currently taking a writing class, and I am proud enough of this assigned journal to post it. Let me know what you think. (Sorry if it seems a little... off. I relied heavily on terms that came up in class.)
In many ways, self-context functions as a limiting agent in all texts we encounter (I should specify that while we established the many possible meanings of 'text' in class, I hear refer primarily to written text). No one can truly understand that which is outside one's own realm of experience, and the effect is even worse if one has an experience which seems similar to the text, but which is in fact quite different. When one knows nothing of the topic being written, the context is lacking, but if personal context leads us down a false trail, we not only fail to understand the author, we fail to understand our failure.
In other ways, this same self-context serves as an invaluable helper. This is most apparent when we share experience with the author because it shows us something we can relate to, but may say it better than we have, or vary just enough that it expands our experience by building onto our existing context. This building of context is a primary means of making ourselves bigger people—people more worth knowing—who may in turn share their experiences with others and help those others to become bigger people themselves. Through this gradual widening of experience, any member of the human race who interacts with others is advanced. This, as I see it, is the primary mode of operation for self-context and any text we receive.
There is, however, yet one more contextual effect that is as much greater than shared experience as a false similarity is worse than a lack of connection. This highest effect of context is when the recipient of a text has an experience wholly unlike that on which the author drew when communicating, but which still has a real connection to the text. Whether the recipient and author shared the author's intended experience no longer seems necessary, because the text begins to take on a life of its own. The recipient can then have a burst of truly original thought—this may, in fact, be the only time this can ever happen in real life—because the idea came neither from the reader nor the writer, but was formed through their exchange. This process is in many ways like the bearing of children, with the author siring an idea, but the new concept being carried to term and birthed by the recipient of the text.
It could be there are other ways that a context could function than these I have listed, but these seem the most primal. Either the context helps or hinders understanding. Hindering could be as little as a full stop or as much as a wrong-mindedness, and helping could be so small as to understand or so great as to conceive of something truly new. In my context, these forms exhaust all possible options.
In many ways, self-context functions as a limiting agent in all texts we encounter (I should specify that while we established the many possible meanings of 'text' in class, I hear refer primarily to written text). No one can truly understand that which is outside one's own realm of experience, and the effect is even worse if one has an experience which seems similar to the text, but which is in fact quite different. When one knows nothing of the topic being written, the context is lacking, but if personal context leads us down a false trail, we not only fail to understand the author, we fail to understand our failure.
In other ways, this same self-context serves as an invaluable helper. This is most apparent when we share experience with the author because it shows us something we can relate to, but may say it better than we have, or vary just enough that it expands our experience by building onto our existing context. This building of context is a primary means of making ourselves bigger people—people more worth knowing—who may in turn share their experiences with others and help those others to become bigger people themselves. Through this gradual widening of experience, any member of the human race who interacts with others is advanced. This, as I see it, is the primary mode of operation for self-context and any text we receive.
There is, however, yet one more contextual effect that is as much greater than shared experience as a false similarity is worse than a lack of connection. This highest effect of context is when the recipient of a text has an experience wholly unlike that on which the author drew when communicating, but which still has a real connection to the text. Whether the recipient and author shared the author's intended experience no longer seems necessary, because the text begins to take on a life of its own. The recipient can then have a burst of truly original thought—this may, in fact, be the only time this can ever happen in real life—because the idea came neither from the reader nor the writer, but was formed through their exchange. This process is in many ways like the bearing of children, with the author siring an idea, but the new concept being carried to term and birthed by the recipient of the text.
It could be there are other ways that a context could function than these I have listed, but these seem the most primal. Either the context helps or hinders understanding. Hindering could be as little as a full stop or as much as a wrong-mindedness, and helping could be so small as to understand or so great as to conceive of something truly new. In my context, these forms exhaust all possible options.
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