I’d like to talk a bit about my AOL experience here: it is my experience alone, mind you.
There is no universal experience as every experience is shaped by our individual perceptions to a very large extent. My take/experience on absolutely everything under the sun is shaped so much so by myself that it’s not funny. Believe it or not, I am responsible for nearly every experience I ever had. It almost ranks equal to the entity causing the experience. What I’m trying to say is, everyone’s experience of any damn thing is shaped by his/her own perception. The perception itself is influenced by a host of factors: mental make-up, constitution, education, upbringing, parental influence etc. When you listen to anyone relating anything, it’s important that you realise how many filters the information passes through. Firstly, the person’s limited perception of things. Secondly, his/her articulative ability. Thirdly, your own perception.
Now tell me, how on earth can you decide anything based on someone’s version of things? You need to absolutely go through it yourself to decide how things measure up for you. Also, it’s important to realise that what you or I perceive is one viewpoint only… The Truth as we know it, the Universal Truth as we’d like it to be.
And all that I’ve written above is obviously…. factored by my own limited perception and even more limited articulation.
rileen says:
So are you saying you realized the ‘inherent subjectivity’ of experiences as a result of your AOL experience, or was this post the prologue to a more detailed one on your AOL experience? A little confusing, that was.
January 31, 2005 — 7:27 am
Lakshmi says:
My AOL experience is a example to prove the larger point that every experience is subject to the individual going though it.
January 31, 2005 — 7:32 am
rileen says:
To me, it’s a matter of degrees – any experience in its ‘totality’ must be subjective, but to many experiences there are some ‘reasonably objective’ components, which is partly why we can hope to have some idea(howewver vague) of what another goes through.
Anyway, what was confusing to me was that you started out by saying
I’d like to talk a bit about my AOL experience here: it is my experience alone, mind you.
And then the rest of the post seemed to be about ‘it is my experience alone’, so that you seemed to end up talking about experiences in general and nothing in particular about your AOL experience.
Anyway, i didn’t mean to nitpick or anything – just trying to understand the post.
January 31, 2005 — 7:40 am
Lakshmi says:
Aw, I started off on the wrong foot, I know…:-)
But seriously, it was just for sake of an example.
January 31, 2005 — 7:41 am
rileen says:
Peace 🙂
I can be a persistent bugger i know 😉
Some may even wonder whether i can not be a persistent bugger!!
January 31, 2005 — 7:46 am
arunshanbhag says:
Whats with this wishy washy talk?
whatever you said above, doesn’t it hold true for everyone and everything we or anyone does?
why this sudden angst? just because someone said something in your ‘gratitude’ post? As you say, its based on ‘their experience.’
You have ennobled and enlivened so many of our lives by gushing so beautifully about so many different things in all your posts. Even though I may not agree with ALL, it does help me in reexamining my own life, relations, watch certain movies, etc. And importantly, it defines exquisitely your beautiful personality.
And don’t apologize for anything!
O! to show I may still disagree with your view, see my post on “Lost in Translation” from April of last year! I do have to say, I have seen it again and it does stir me – but what the hell, my comments are ‘funny.’ what say you?
http://www.livejournal.com/users/arunshanbhag/9006.html
Enjoy!
January 31, 2005 — 7:55 am
Lakshmi says:
🙂
Oh Arun, there is no angst within, thank God! Just an elaboration of something which has been squirming within me longing for that essential *blog expression…:-)
Thanks!
January 31, 2005 — 8:00 am