Experience, and A Thought About My Generation...

[Beast]

A while ago, someone asked me to give them an example of a time in my life where I had felt an incredibly strong emotion. And to my surprise, I couldn't think of anything. The more I looked retrospectively at my life, the more neutral and uneventful it seemed. Even in momentous events in my life, when I review the memories of the supposedly strong emotions I felt and they always seemed "Okay" or "Passable"

Now it could just be that strong emotion can only be felt "in the moment". But there have been many times in my life where I could have felt a strong emotion, but there was something blocking me. A few summers ago, I visited the grand canyon with my family. My mum who's pretty "spiritual" and a massive nature junky was very clearly getting a whole lot out of the experience, fawning constantly about how amazing it was. Meanwhile, I stood on the sidelines, completely dry of any great feeling. When she asked me what I thought about it afterwards I had to lie about how it was an incredible life-changing experience or what have you.

Despite all this, there are some things that do incur great highs in me. I'm a massive film buff, and after seeing a great film at the cinema I feel charged, and energized, full of creativity and passion for life, and I don't get this feeling from anything else. I felt so much better after seeing my now-favourite film in the cinema for the first time, than seeing my favourite band live in concert (another instance where I was self-pressurized into pretending to enjoy the experience). Realizing this, I've come to terms with what I believe is the reason why I experience things in the rather lame and boring manner that I do.

In my childhood (and I'm sure the same is true for most members of my generation and a few subsequent ones before that), things like films and TV were always readily available. I used to watch about 2-3 films a day, plus maybe two hours of TV, and a storytape at bed time. So most of my childhood stimulus came from these sources, rather than from playing outside and exploring which is what my mothers generation would have mostly done as children. My theory is that, because I was subjected to so much material that is representative of real life, I was trained to only feel emotion through this screen of representation, rather than my mothers generation who would get it straight from the source.

I compared this hypothesis* to the way I seem to look at the world in my day to day activities, and it definitely matched up. When I walk through the countryside, and I come across a particularly striking sight or image, I can't help but think of it in terms of a camera angle or film shot. It's very difficult for me to completely surrender myself to an experience. According to my natural interpretation of the world, reality is a pale imitation of film, rather than the other way around.

This could just be me, but I posted this to see if theres anyone else who was born in a similar time as me (early nineties) who can identify with this. Discussion, comments, criticism, blah blah blah.

*Much appreciated, Albino.

[Marlin Clock]

Maybe you need some glasses? Everything has always seemed better real than on a screen for me, but I did play a lot as a child, so that doesn't disprove your theory.

[joliet_jane]

I've thought the same thing many times myself.

What you're talking about seems symptomatic of living in postmodern times.  Reality has been secondhand, in a way, to people our age.  It's actually a big issue for cultural critics, and it's bigger than just individual people.

I too went to the Grand Canyon, and I do recall having a similar reaction.  I couldn't make myself believe that what I was looking that was truly real.  I felt as if it was fake, because I had never seen anything like it in real life.

Also, on the audio commentary for Analyze That, the director says that the mafioso extras were mostly actual ex-mafia guys, and some of them told him that they had wanted to be wise guys when they were young because it looked so cool in the movies, and they adopted the styles from those movies.
That's what postmodern culture is:  A picture of a picture of a picture.

[Beast]

It's actually a big issue for cultural critics, and it's bigger than just individual people..

Interesting, can you elaborate?

[Slurpee]

That kinda sucks, but I can't really relate. I trip myself out just thinking about basic fucking shit irl.

A few weeks ago I found myself awake in bed, staring at my hands by the moonlight, just thinking: Me seeing my hands started about 93 million miles away, at the sun; a massive ball of burning incandescent gasses. A gargantuan atom-smashing ball of chemical reactions so complicated I instinctively place them beyond simple memorization, about 1.3 million times the size of earth by volume. The light from those chemical reactions traveled for about 8 minutes through a vacuous space larger than any distance ever travelled by man, faster than any other known anything, bounced off the moon, and continued to Earth, where it came through out atmosphere and then my bedroom window, and it hit my hand. My hand absorbed the visible light not already absorbed by the moon, and the rest was reflected to my eye; and in one of the most complicated biological mechanisms known to man, my eye processed the light into information that was interpreted by my brain.
And that is how I was looking at my hands.
Looking at my hands. How fucking crazy is that? It's ridiculous. I mean, did you even read all of that? And it's like a thousand times more complicated than my understanding of it; it just goes deeper and deeper and deeper. And it's not something one ever thinks of. If you're looking at your hands in the moonlight, do you even think as far as, "Those are my hands?" It's completely natural to us.

The sheer horrifying scope of reality is removed from our day to day lives, but whenever I start thinking, really thinking, that's how I process shit: with the terrifyingly huge, amazing, beautiful, wonder of existence. Or at least as much as I can handle.

I've never been to the Grand Canyon, but when I took a ~5-mile hike from our camp site in Yellowstone to this place called Fairy Falls, it was the most beautiful, majestic fucking thing I'd ever seen in my entire life, and I wouldn't trade the experience of having been there for a few short hours for any movie. Not even Terminator 2, or the 5-hour real-time version of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.


tl;dr reality is rad I cannot relate at all.

[Beast]

very long post

Damn, I envy you, man. I'm finishing my exams soon and I'm planning on using the summer for a kind of media fast, i.e only using internet for functional purposes, no films, or TV, books and music in moderation. I'm hoping this will help get me back to reality and shake this emotional lull I'm in at the moment.

[LeekClock]

I can relate to what Slurpee said, and it's not like I lead a media-starved life either.

Then again, I don't think I ever recall watching 2-3 films (plus more tv, etc) every day, as you claim to have.

[Marlin Clock]

I don't get it, how do y'all go to a ten mile wide, mile and a half deep gorge and not be amazed at the power of nature?

[Beast]

There was of course some exception to my normal childhood routine, when my parents would take me to this campsite in Cornwall for a few weeks in the summer every year. No TV, No computers, just the beach, the countryside, and good friends. I hold that place very dearly in my heart, and its the only place that I can remember as having a very specific "feeling" to it, an indescribable feeling of what it is like to be there, rather than what it looks like (which is how I remember every other place I've been to).

[AlbinoClock]

If I wasn't using the on-screen keyboard I'd expand on what Slurpee said, but I am so I'll just agree with him for now.

[Beast]

I have had feelings similar to Slurpees, but on a more metaphysical or existential level. Its a very difficult feeling to describe, and very difficult to bring on (I used to get it a lot as a child though), but in the most simple terms you could describe it as your entire existence and all its attributes being called into question, that question being "Why am I seeing the world from this particular point of view?" Once you've harnessed that feeling it is very scary, and your mind is very keen to let go of it.

[RomanClock]

I've never been very emotional. Thinking about some things gives me a sense of awe though (clouds a lot, and mostly other vast things)

[AlbinoClock]

Maybe it's just a matter of not taking the world around you for granted. I don't see why you'd be afraid of the oddity of your perspective. It's a beautiful, immensely perplexing thing.

[joliet_jane]

Interesting, can you elaborate?

The idea is that what it meant to be human (in the Western World) 100 years ago is not the same as what it means now.

[ArcticSwirlClock]

I know. Exactly. What you mean.

[BilliardBall10]

Well, slurpee summed it up well, yet i can tell that its truly amazing, hwo the universe works. taht what scares me and amazes me at the same time. how big is the universe? when it starts? is there other life?
 
ARE WE THE ONLY LIVIN PLANET LIFE?!1
 
yep. scary stuff.
 
however, i will bring you a smaller thing, as an example. hwo graet is life, the miracle of creation, or even of the birth, of an animal, or the tree taht grows. life ia wonderfull, my friend. i mean, look at the world around us.
 
also, i may add, whats adds me with the feeling of awe, isnt only nature, or planets, but sir, the feeling many lost. honour. either by a man who talks about free rights, or the right to live, and/or be defended... or to fight in a glorious battle vs many.
 
that my idea of amazing.
 
ps. also grand cayon is great. i hope i can visit it.
 
i will be scared.
 
 
and beast clock, i dont knwo you, but liking movies, isnt a bad thing. it means you love all films. (almost),
so yea, its not bad

[CubeMelonClock]

I feel similar to Slurpee (as do others apparently).
Only difference is that lately I apply that thought process to all the people I see rather than individual objects. In other words, I attempt to see each person for who they really are, based on all the little details of their life, or even so simple as the way they move. I think of all the individual "stories" floating around me all the time, and it has given me a great deal of sympathy that I sometimes feel like I can't handle -- I often get extremely emotional over people who have nothing to do with me, and have not outwardly disclosed their inner thoughts. People are easy to read if you really try, it just sucks when it becomes rooted as something you can't control. Needless to say, I prefer to surround myself with happy people whenever I can, but I digress

Dunno, but personally I hope to get out of this phase of thinking. I'm sure it's just a matter of growing up. But really I just don't know -- everything sure is complicated.

[FluxCapacitorClock]

I think my loving films actually made reality better. My mind tends to blow everything out of proportion and make it seen more epic and meaningful than it actually is. Much like in a film, where the only meaningful things are the events the characters experience, hence they're made to seem more epic and meaningful when in reality they would be completely meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

[joliet_jane]

It just occured to me that this phenomenon is probably why some people "get" YouTube Poops and some people don't, and why none of the people who "get" them happen to be "old."  There's something funny yet disturbing about them, like they are screwing your mind.

Look at the Golden Girls video at FatalFarm:
http://www.fatalfarm.com/tvthemes.html
It's funny and scary, because it's a garish alteration of our normal TV-reality.

[Beast]

It's just dawned on me that perhaps this excess of media imagery in early childhood could be one of the causes of these GTA inspired killings we keep hearing about, because their concepts of reality have been warped early on, and so games like GTA seem more real than the real world.