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Context and experience
Nov. 3rd, 2008 07:50 amAs a kid, I was book addict, and I learned a great deal about how to experience stories, how to immerse myself in them.
I closed what I thought of as a really good book and knew it was good because I'd lay there dreaming for a moment, floating between the world of the story and the real world.
It was wonderful, but I spent so much time learning about that experience that I think I neglected certain other experiences. Perhaps I didn't neglect them as a child, perhaps they're simply very difficult to acquire as a child. I'm not sure.
What I wonder is: how do I go about moving between events in my day with that same sense of completion and perspective that I can bring to stories? Too often I feel as if I fail to close the book on an event, admire it for the emotions (good and bad) and thoughts (comfortable and prickly) that it has invoked in me, and then move on with equal and fresh pleasure to the next event.
As a reader, I know that dragging my perception of other stories and events into my subsequent reading sometimes enriches and sometimes cheapens the experience of the next story. (There are, for instance, many excellent books written each year for children that are simply not as fun if they're the twentieth rather than the first or second version of a such a story that I've read. In evaluating those, I have to drop as much of my reading experience at the door as I can manage.)
As a person living my life, I feel that I don't know how to experience repeat experiences with fresh eyes. This frustrates me. I also feel that I carry the experience of one event (often a negative one) with me throughout the day, allowing it to reduce my pleasure in subsequent positive events. This also frustrates me no end.
Beginner's mind? I lack it when it counts. *sigh*
I closed what I thought of as a really good book and knew it was good because I'd lay there dreaming for a moment, floating between the world of the story and the real world.
It was wonderful, but I spent so much time learning about that experience that I think I neglected certain other experiences. Perhaps I didn't neglect them as a child, perhaps they're simply very difficult to acquire as a child. I'm not sure.
What I wonder is: how do I go about moving between events in my day with that same sense of completion and perspective that I can bring to stories? Too often I feel as if I fail to close the book on an event, admire it for the emotions (good and bad) and thoughts (comfortable and prickly) that it has invoked in me, and then move on with equal and fresh pleasure to the next event.
As a reader, I know that dragging my perception of other stories and events into my subsequent reading sometimes enriches and sometimes cheapens the experience of the next story. (There are, for instance, many excellent books written each year for children that are simply not as fun if they're the twentieth rather than the first or second version of a such a story that I've read. In evaluating those, I have to drop as much of my reading experience at the door as I can manage.)
As a person living my life, I feel that I don't know how to experience repeat experiences with fresh eyes. This frustrates me. I also feel that I carry the experience of one event (often a negative one) with me throughout the day, allowing it to reduce my pleasure in subsequent positive events. This also frustrates me no end.
Beginner's mind? I lack it when it counts. *sigh*
