Knowing vs. Perceiving

Upon defining the word “perceiving”, I had to look into similar word such as “deceiving” or “conceiving”. From my studies in Latin, I know that the shared ending “-ceive” means “to take”: deceiving (you are taking something away), conceiving (you are taking something in). Thus perceiving must mean “taking something thoroughly”. We discussed in class the difference between perceptual and conceptual art. Perceptual art creates a realistic duplicate of the item, since it thoroughly takes in the shape, the size, the color of the object. However, conceptual art is symbolic; you are taking an object’s physical characteristics into your mind and then creating the work of art in accordance with your imagination.

Knowing is similar to the idea behind conceptual art. Knowledge is different for every person. There are two types of knowledge: objective and subjective. Over the course of human history, objective knowledge has become a set of rules (1+4=5). Subjective knowledge is left for interpretation. A moment in history is experienced by a plethora of humans from various countries. Each man returns to his home and retells the story. Years later, students in the Middle East will be learning about the United States as a global police; while students in the United States will be learning about the chaos in the Middle East. Both accounts of the situation are true, but they are incredibly different. By knowing certain truths, you can interpret facts. True knowledge requires an understanding from every single angle—there is no absolute knowledge.

Perceiving and knowing can often be interrelated. Once people looked onto the horizon and saw a flat surface; thereby thinking, the Earth is clearly flat. They saw with their very eyes the smooth ocean plane. When a sailor set out he knew he would eventually meet the edge of the Earth. But somehow, he managed to stay on the Earth. As the sailor “took into” his mind the fact that he never fell off the earth, his knowledge altered. His knowledge of an earth that did not eject sailors once they hit the edge changed his perception of the earth.

Most people know that the color of grass is green and the color of a strawberry is red. Scientists have universally agreed that grass is indeed green. But to my friend who is color blind (specifically to shades of green). The grass is clearly orange. He sees the grass with his very own eyes as orange. Who is right? Certainly I know grass is green. I have seen green grass my entire life. Knowing that grass is green; I cannot convince my friend who knows that grass is orange. In such a situation, knowing and perceiving differ.

Perceiving and knowing do not need to be coupled together. I know that electrons exist, but I have never seen one. I can only imagine from the combination of scientists’ opinions what one would probably look like, but I have yet to verify with touch or sight its existence. Planets other than Earth exist. Although, I have seen pictures of Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter; but, I have never thoroughly took in their existence. I know that there are galaxies other than the Milky Way, but no one has ever flown that far into space to perceive their existence. On the other hand, imagine that you are walking in a dark alley and you see a dark object in the corner of my eye. You can see that the object is the size of either a big greyhound or a trashcan. You do not know what the object is until you approach it. As you walk towards it, your fears are calmed because you realize after seeing the object, touching the object, and smelling the object (perhaps even tasting the object) that it is simply a trashcan. You do not need to know that there is garbage in the trashcan, because according to your sense of smell you perceive that indeed there is garbage. But without opening the trashcan, you will never really know if that odor was the result of rotten bananas or a specially planted stink bomb.

I have frequently mentioned the usage of senses in knowing and perceiving. I have seen that grass and I have smelled the trashcan. By using my senses, I know for a fact that grass is green and that trashcans sometimes smell like rotten bananas. Knowledge through oral tradition falls into the category of subjective knowledge. My aunt’s cousin’s next-door-neighbor’s son’s friend’s father told me the other day to take everything I hear with a grain of salt, because as the wonderful game of Telephone has proven countless times my sister’s name is “Sandy” not “Randy”. No way of knowing is truly superior. However, unaltered documentation such as videos and photographs often present the most truth, while stories tend to have bias. A completely unbiased account of anything is hard to find, so when analyzing facts you must take bias into consideration. As I mentioned earlier: true knowledge requires an understanding from every single angle—there is no absolute knowledge.

The grass is always more orange on the other side.

Who am I?

A person must accept her past, present, and future to truly know herself. Upon looking back on the past, she must see how it affected her development. Most importantly she must recognize how life could have been different had she taken a different path. However, she must know that the past cannot be changed. Instead of dwelling on the past, she must take that knowledge after looking at her past and use it in the present to live the lifestyle she desires. Her past actions determine her present, which determines her future actions. Throughout her life, she must never lose sight of who she is, which is determined by her past, present, and future actions. As found in Luke 9:25, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?” To ensure that she does not lose focus of who she is, she must value what she has found out from looking at herself from an outsider’s point of view. The moment she sees her flaws and weaknesses, and she understands where they come from will she be able to grow as a person. Her aspirations could never be achieved if she does not value this self-knowledge, which is the result of years of re-evaluating and re-assessing herself. It is crucial that she knows who she is; otherwise, she will never know what makes her unique, she will never know how she can change the world for the better, she will never know how to become a better person. Self-knowledge of oneself is valuable, because if you do not know who you are what “good is it for a man to gain the whole world”.

Growing up in a family with parents who both have Ph. Ds and a sister who is training to become a doctor, there has always been pressure on me to succeed. For years, I assumed that my stress was the result of my sister bullying me and telling me that if I don’t get a 4.0 GPA I will be living on the side of the road; but, in essence, I have put this pressure on my life by myself. I had every capability to tell my sister that I will succeed no matter what. But this competition mentality has been engrained in my head for years. This sense of competition is the root of my greatest weakness. I have no patience for people who slow me down. I easily get stressed out when people go against what I say. The standards that I set for people are standards that I would set unto myself. I measure people by their comparison to myself, partly because I have always compared myself to my sister. My lack of understanding has contributed to friends accusing me of “judging” them too much and of being close minded. The mentality its “my way or the highway” has hindered my life rather than improved it as I assumed it would. As I look back on my past, I have acquired the self-knowledge that has ultimately convinced me that my weakness can become strength. Competition, in moderation, is the core of a capitalist society. All I need to do is differentiate the times when competition is trivial for my development, and when it is hurting me. I see my past, as an opportunity to see the results of my actions. I can now react to the decisions I have to make in my life right now, knowing what caused friends to be upset with me in the past. Certainly, impatience is rarely necessary in everyday life. But the perfect amount of impatience can help drive myself and others to finish the task at hand. All I need to do is find the perfect balance between this competition I have and my impatience with people, who I believe to be holding me down. I see the final months of high school as the perfect opportunity to change my mentality before I go to college. The common statement, “Everybody is different,” can be suited for my weakness. I cannot possibly expect people to be upheld by the standards that I hold to myself.

My competitive edge is also the root of my greatest strength—my self-motivation. I get incredibly stressed out and upset when someone thinks that I am not working to my potential. I have no problem going above and beyond on an issue that I am passionate about. I care about virtually everybody and everything. Whenever I see a documentary about animal suffering or a devastating civil war, I am the first to go online and research the problem. I am easily drawn to tears if I see a complete injustice to humans or nature. To some being reduced to tears over a petty issue such as trees can seem as a sign of weakness. But for me it is my greatest strength because I have never lost hope. Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel has never been a problem for me. Throughout high school, I have imagined myself as a lawyer, Congresswoman, environmental activist. My dream is to have a profession in which I can actually change someone’s life for the better. My drive to receive the highest possible education has been my aspiration since elementary school. I live by the quote, “Today I will do what you won’t, so tomorrow I can do what you can’t.” Such a competitive mentality that I may potentially fall behind my cohort has driven me to take on the most challenging courses, several extracurricular activities, and sports. Certainly, I am not the most intelligent, involved, or athletic, but my motivation has pushed me to work hard in all these areas. Even though I am not the best, I still have an aspiration to become the best. I want to go to the best schools, be apart of the best family, and have the best friends. Such an ideal is hard achieve, but I still try to live out my life working to achieve whatever goal I have set my mind to at that time. I have no doubt in my mind that I will accomplish great things in the course of my lifetime. I surround myself with people, who support me. Without my friends and family I would have lost my motivation to work hard in school so as to go to a great university where I can prepare for a job that will keep me challenged and most importantly happy.

Writing about my flaws, was easier than writing about my strengths. I kept thinking, “All humans have flaws.” Explaining my weakness made me feel more human and I knew that I could better relate with others when I read their blogs. As I wrote about my strength, I felt that I was bragging about my life. By physically writing down my strengths and weakness, I have had to face the truth. Discussing my weakness, I feared what people would think of me. If they would approach me differently, perhaps cautiously, were they to know my lack of understanding and impatience for people who hold me down. Indeed, now that I look back on what I have written, I realize that it is virtually impossible for any person to hold me down as my greatest strength protects me from that. Seeing that concept materialize on my computer screen has forced me to re-evaluate my competition driven mentality. One way or another, either through this blog assignment or through self-realization, I would have had to figure out what my weakness and strength was. Inevitably, everybody has to recognize how they run their life. In such a situation, sooner is better than later. It did not shock me that my strength and weakness are closely linked, divided by a flimsy line. If I push to hard in one direction, I will find myself consumed with competition. If I push myself too hard in the other direction, I will find myself too realistic, with my head in the clouds. Moderation is key.

Zawsze Cos Dla Siebie

Moja Babcia mi powiedzała żebym zawsze miałam coś dla siebie, jakiś sekret. For those who do not know Polish, this statement is a mystery in itself.

My grandmother (“moja Babcia”) has a quaint, colonial house at the end of an industrialized street in Warsaw; I sat in her antique filled room, waiting for her to return from the kitchen. Looking around the room, I saw postcards that her father sent her during World War Two scattered across her desk, pictures of me and my sister framed on her wall and my mother’s old toys on her book shelf. She always conveyed a sense of family and community. So when she told me (“mi powiedzała”) that she has had a secret for forty years, I was shocked. My mind began to wander; at that moment, nothing seemed “cooler” than a forty year old secret. As calmly as possible, so as not discourage my grandmother from telling me, the word “Co?” slipped from my lips. But it was not that easy. She did not want to reveal the secret to me without telling me first why she had hid it for so long. The pause seemed to last forever; then, she began explaining what kind of society we live in today how people are encouraged to share every moment with their life with someone else. If they did not, then someone would think they were hiding something. As my grandmother assumed, I agreed with this statement. Without telling me her secret just yet, she told me the most valuable piece of advice I have ever heard: to always have something for myself, some kind of secret. ("żebym zawsze miałam coś dla siebie, jakiś sekret")

However, she warned me that the secret that I should hold onto is not one that would ruin a family or could cause irreperable damage, but one that is small and personal. I asked her why she believed having a secret was necessary in life. And she simply told me that in this world we share too much knowledge and information. She noted that in her marriage, she and my grandfather used to share every morsel of their lives with one another because they assumed that such a personal connection was necessary for the survival of their marriage. However, they were both mistaken. My grandmother commented that she felt worthless that there was nothing that she had for herself that she could hold onto: the children they had—they shared, the house they had—they shared, the food they ate—they shared. If for some unfortunate reason that disappeared, she would be left with nothing.

So my grandmother began making up her own mysteries. She shared some of her forty year old secrets with me because she had more that she still had not told anyone. Every Thursday after work she would not take the bus home, instead she would take a walk through a nearby park. Although she showed up about an hour late from work every Thursday, nobody in the family ever questioned her. Certainly my mother was curious about what she was doing, but my grandmother would come home every Thursday refreshed and at ease, because she took that extra time in her day to do something for herself. Therefore, nobody thought she was hiding some scandalous information from the family. She also told me that she had a favorite chocolate bar, which she would always buy at a grocery store. However, she would eat the chocolate bar on the walk home so that nobody ever found out about the treat she bought. My grandfather admitted that he knew about the specific chocolate bar, but never confronted her or tried to buy that chocolate for her, because that was her own thing.

I cannot possibly imagine the vast amount of secrets my grandmother hides from the world, but I know that they are all for the better of her sanity. Since that conversation with her last summer, I have been searching for my own secret that no one else will know. Certain mysteries should not be solved.

At the end of my life

Each person is given less than one century on Earth to put meaning into their life. I see only one purpose of life, to find, give and receive love. However, this love does not have to be between humans, it can be between a human and a book or a hobby. It can be between a dog and its squeaky toy. Although an inanimate object may not be able to express the words, “I love you,” it offers happiness in your life. That love, which makes you happy, gives meaning to your life. Through that happiness, each person influences his surroundings. Knowledge and family give me happiness. I believe it is impossible for someone to have a meaningless life. Even if someone may not impact someone’s immediate life; they will impact a future generation through their existence and mark left on Earth. You never know when your grave will be excavated for scientific research in a few millennia.

My father and I came up with a project entitled “Nowa Alexandria” that we want to jump start in my lifetime. Nowa in Polish can be translated as “nova” or “new”. Often I think about what pieces of information were stored at the ancient library in Alexandria. If we had those books and artifacts, would life be different? My father asked me, “where is the one place you can store information so that it will never get damaged.” I thought it was an easy question “the computer”. He returned “What if there is a war and the information system, including electricity gets destroyed?” At my puzzled expression, he said “Think outside of the box… or sphere.” Space. I want to create a program which will involve a capsule that will store duplicates of information and keep the information in space. After a few centuries, more capsules can be added and information from previous generations can be extracted. As the founder of the project, I will be infamous. Although fame is not necessarily an aspiration in my life, the thought of helping future generations understand my electronically-driven lifestyle will be worth it. Humanity will obviously benefit from centuries of information that will be protected from war and nature. The process can be internationally unifying as each nation or culture will contribute their duplicates.

Languages are a unifying force. Languages allow familiarity and comfort. In a situation where there is a language or cultural barrier, hearing words from “home” are welcoming and assuring. To the average frustrated high school student taking a foreign language the question, “Why cannot everybody learn English?” frequently surfaces. What if the universal language changes from English to Mandarin Chinese? In the course of my life, I want to become fluent in as many different languages as possible. I want to study the languages of the world, especially Arabic and Chinese. I am fortunate enough to know Polish, some French and Latin, but Roman rooted languages have become easy to understand for me. I want to look at Hebrew, Arabic and Singhalese and understand the message. I want to become familiar with as many cultures as possible so that I can see varying perspectives. Most nations remain ignorant of other cultures, and our understanding of another nation’s actions may be answered by studying their culture. As humans, we are all interconnected; we just need to remain open-minded and try to learn another language, thus learning another culture.

A few years ago, when I told my parents that I wanted to join the Peace Corps before I went to college, protests spewed out of their mouths. The words “safety” “career” and “education” all mixed in with the conversation. After much dispute, my parents convinced me that when I retire I will have more knowledge and experience to help others than I will as an eighteen year old. At the end of my life, I want to be judged by the service I give back to my community. As our new principal said, “To whom much is given, much is expected.” I have been blessed with a stable life; I want to help as much as I can those people who need it. I have always envied people who have been in the Peace Corps or organizations similar to them, because they have seen the world at its best and at its worst. Most importantly, people in such organizations give hope. Albus Dumbledore said, “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” I want to be that light. Even if somebody is rich or poor, we are all capable of putting a smile on somebody else’s face. Happiness gives meaning to life. By joining the Peace Corps as a retiree, I hope to share my joy with others.

I have no idea what I will be doing in fifteen years, what kind of job I will have, what career I will have chosen; but I hope that I will find time to lobby about issues important to me. My friend’s mother is an inspiration for who I want to be in the future. Every Friday, she writes a letter to a government official, or newspaper editor expressing her opinions. If I feel passionate about an issue, I want to make my opinions clear. How can a democracy function, if the people do not speak up? I do not believe other people should make decisions without my input, as long as I am knowledgeable on the subject. I lobbied as a sophomore about Iran’s breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; I felt truly alive. I spoke to an advisor of Representative DeLauro and Senator Lieberman. I shared my ideas with them and they listened. I want to encourage other people to lobby because many people get lost in society. Humans are capable of communicating, but many believe they are insignificant. However, many insignificant people can make a huge impact. By sharing your experiences, you can influence another person’s decisions causing a chain reaction as that person influences another person.

At the end of the day, my family gives me happiness, thus giving me meaning and value in my life. You can always count on family to support you. There is a bond that cannot be matched by people out of the family. Nobody knows me better than my parents and my sister. I know that if I am ever upset, they will understand. I would trust my family with my most prized possession because I know they will never betray me. By the time I die, I hope to have children, grandchildren, and possibly a dog. I want to have children, who can continue my family’s traditions and mannerisms. I want to raise my children so that they can see the happiness in the world, rather than the misery. However, I want them to look at the world practically, and understand that there is injustice. But I want my family to give back the love they have received to everybody they meet. Where they find the love to distribute is up to them. They can find the source of love from family, friends, or a hope for the future. I know that my children and grandchildren will spread love in all its forms.

How will my life be judged? Hopefully by the amount of smiles that were put on other people’s faces. If you have ever made someone laugh, you have meaning in your life. Through all of life’s misery, it is the moments of sheer joy that we look back on.

Permanence

Over the summer, I went to Poland to visit my family. As usual, my mother and I stopped at my grandmother’s grave; but this time we also stopped at my grandfather’s grave who died a few months ago. His death had seemed fake. Even when I saw his grave I was not convinced that he was truly gone. Even now, months later, I feel like he is still alive, going about his everyday business. I am not sure if my mind is playing tricks with me, or if in fact he is still alive just not physically. Is that immortality that I feel that my grandfather is around, even though I know where he is buried? The answer lies in humanity’s inability to cope with the concept of mortality.

Humanity has known for millennia that we cannot avoid our deaths. We know that eventually life will move on without us in it. However, most people feel rushed in life, that they cannot fit everything into one lifetime. So it should not be shocking that the “Fountain of Youth” or the “Resurrecting Stone” have found their way into literature and society. Most of this anxiety comes from an inability to predict the future. “When the Anunnaki, the judges, come together, and Mammetun the mother of destines, together they decree the fates of men. Life and death they allot but the day of death they do not disclose” (107). Not knowing when we will die is probably the single factor that keeps us going everyday. Instinctively, a human’s primary goal is survival. But if we all know we will die, why fight to remain alive? Why not simply jump off a bridge? The answer is quite simple. We want to leave a lasting impression on those around us. We want families and friends who will remember us and carry on our ideas for generations.

Utnapishtim told Gilgamesh, “There is no permanence” (106). Certainly life is constantly changing; however, to some degree, I must disagree with Utnapishtim. There is some everlasting characteristic to every life. Throughout the misery and the hate on the earth, humans still have love and hope which are traits that have been passed down for centuries and will continue to be passed down. These ideas are permanent. We find this similar concept in the myth of Pandora’s Box. When Pandora opened the box evils and plagues were released upon the humans; however hope remained in the box comforting humans in their misery.

I asked my grandmother once if she was afraid to die. I expected her to talk about heaven and how she will have eternal life with God. I had become so used to the church’s teachings that I should do good on Earth while I am alive so that I can go to heaven. In response to these teachings, humans have developed natural laws, which condemn killing and lying. But my grandmother responded differently. She told me that she will die but not in the hearts of those around her. Cliche, I thought. Then she continued by saying, “I am influenced by my mother, who was influenced by her parents; I have had the wonderful opportunity to raise two daughters who I have influenced, and my daughters influenced their own daughters. The chain is everlasting. I am not afraid to die, because I have done everything that I wanted to do in my life and know that the future generations after me will have a little bit of my life in them .” And it made sense; my grandmother’s meaning of life is to influence her family by means of her love. Generally, in the end, we simply want to be remembered for what we did. And only that individual can decide how they will be remembered when they die.

Humans find eternal life in the lives of the new generation, somewhat like a chain reaction. One person has an idea which influences a person and that idea branches out causing an eternal chain reaction. “The destiny was fulfilled which the father of the gods…had decreed for Gilgamesh: ‘…None will leave a monument for generations to come to compare with his (118).’”Gilgamesh, illustrates this idea that a life can be immortal not physically but conceptually due to his actions. Gilgamesh has eternal life; millennia after the story was written down, humans are still reading about his adventures and quests.

Thinking About the Hero

Epic works consist of a series of events in which there are adventures and struggles. Usually the struggle involves an evil. Whether that evil is Darth Vadar or racism, the protagonist in epic works usually thwarts this evil. Thus many people would make the assumption that a protagonist is a savior, a hero. When classifying a hero, one must take into considerations the intentions of the protagonist. When Huckleberry Finn lied to the bounty hunters, was that a heroic action? Did he protect Jim because he wanted a father figure, or did he see the humanitarian cause? As in most situations there are grey areas. It is up to the reader to decide who she wants to consider a hero based on her own values.

Still, most people will agree that Superman, Spiderman and Wonder Woman are all heroes because they dedicate their lives to fighting crime and villains. Most people will agree that 9/11 firefighters are heroes because they risked their lives trying to save people. But do most people consider a doctor who works in the Emergency Room a hero, or is he simply doing his job? Some may think that he is an average person. That he did not do anything extraordinary he just decided to earn his living by curing and helping others. But to those who were saved by that doctor he meets all standards as a hero. There must be different definitions of heroes. But all heroes share a common trait they put others before themselves and have a willingness to sacrifice their life or time for a better cause. In essence, anybody can be a hero. However, everybody cannot be a hero because then the definition of a hero would change to “an ordinary person”.

Becoming a hero requires a mixture of fate and fortune also known as “the right place at the right time.” Superman could not be considered a hero if he was not put in dangerous situations where he could help others. In addition, a hero has to first know the risks involved in helping that person, and then act accordinbly to help that person. But the presence of the media affects the average person’s interpretation of who deserves to be hero. The media defines what actions are heroic, often neglecting the people behind the scenes who produced the hero. In such a way, women, as heroines, have been forgotten throughout history. In the earliest literature, stories of war were the most common. In these stories, men often shouted, “save the women and the children” whenever men were attacked by an enemy. And rightly so, women were the link to maintaining the population and children were the future generation. In such a battle, the men courageously fought other men. By the end of the battle, a few men were considered heroes for killing the most enemy men and helping keep their families safe. Under old definitoins of a hero as a warrior, women had no chance to obtain such a title. Instead women would be home raising her children, educating them, and passing down traditions, while their husbands were away. Because of their absense from battle, they could never considered as heroines. One exception is Joan of Arc, who rode into battle disguised as a man. She was considered a heroine and was later deemed a Saint by the Roman Catholic Church, but she needed to alter her appearance to be considered on the same level as men. Traced back since the beginning of warfare, the belief that men are heroes has been engraved in modern society.

The definition of a “hero” has changed since World War Two. Up until that war heroes who courageously fought and died for their country disappeared with the emergence of technical warfare. If the idea that a hero had to kill the most amount of enemy people for the security of his country, then the nuclear physicist who developed the atomic bomb or the person with the most powerful machine gun would be a hero. However those people are not necessarily heroes. In their place a new line of heroes emerged. Now people who save the most amount of lives, such as the firefighters on 9/11 and the doctor in the Emergency Room are considered heroes.

The perception of a hero has changed relatively recently, as more people are beginning to consider peace-keepers and teachers in Third World countires as heroes. The new type of heroes are a product of the current environment. In a society full of injustice and struggle over material goods, heroes conduct themselves in ways to be just and caring. Whether that hero is Spiderman or Al Gore, everybody needs a hero to keep in check their virtues and to aspire to become a better person. Heroes encourage others to overcome their obstacles and persevere. Without heroes, there would be little incentive to do good in the world. Most people would stop and stare in a crisis; they would not take the initiative to take action. But there will never be a world without heroes, because humans will always need to have somebody to look up to. As Bertold Brecht said, “Unhappy the land that needs heroes,” humans will find a hero in all the crevices of the earth. To some people a dictator who brought order to a country can be considered a hero, while to others that dictator limited freedoms; therefore, he is a tyrant. The debate between the definition of a terrorist and a martyr perfectly parallels a villain and a hero.