Hw #2

Dear Jerald,
I liked how you got straight to the point of whether you agreed or disagreed with David Banach's view. Also how you explained his view and what it meant to you.I think that you could have put in some quotes by banach and elaborated more on how his ideas make you feel. I think that when you say "looks can be very decieving and that just looking at someone else cannot reveal exactly how that individual may necessarily feel." you could have explained more what you meant through a personal experience or used something that happened in the world.You post left me hanging like you had so much more to say yet it wasn't written down.
--Brittany

Dear John,
I like how you used a personal experience to express your view on Banach's ideas. I think allowing us to see this personal experience gave me an insight to why you believe that we are not absolute individuals. That at some point we connect with another person to a certain degree.I like how you related two people knowing each other for their whole lives connecting and two people on the train, sitting next to each other. How can you understand each other or connect with one another?When you said "our eyes may not see things in the same way" I thought about colors and how we each look at colors and have different preferrence. How we each see people differently from the outside even before we meet them and get to know who they are on the inside.John I think that you could have quoted Banach in your response to show more of an understanding of his views. Also so you could show whether you agree or disagree.Your post made me think of personal experiences and how and when I felt connected with the people in them. It made me think of how when I am on the train I look at the people around me and try and figure out their story. Sometimes I can look at them and shed that top layer of skin that protects them and discover who they really are.Most of all your post was very engaging and made me want to read the next line.
--Brittany

HW # 3

In the beginning when I read Banach's Lecture I felt that he was wrong about beginning able to feel what other people are going through. But after reflecting on my life I discovered that there have been times when I have felt that even when explained my feelings someone they would sympathize with me but they never really understood how I felt.

I cannot really express more right now, having a block...

"We cannot escape our freedom" What freedom? There is no freedom, there is only what we perceive to be free. But our perception really is our thoughts in a darkroom with no windows.

I think that I am starting to agree with Banach's theory of you can only feel, your pain, your sorrow, your happiness. The more I realize that many times I have felt lonely even when people have gone through the same thing as me. That even though they went through experiences similar to mine, they'll never truly understand how I felt at that moment. I find this interesting because I always feel the need to be connected to people, to comfort people when they feel at their lowest point not because I am trying to understand them, but because I know what loneliness feels like through my experiences. I hope that maybe by comforting them I can take some of it away, but I know that I will never understand how deep their pain lies within them because like everyone else they are hiding behind a mask. A mask that David Banach identifies as roles:

We are also familiar with the way we all play roles, identifying ourselves, or seeing ourselves, in terms of how other people see us, letting other people determine what we are instead of deciding, ourselves, what we will be...we make make ourselves into characters in the plays; we make ourselves into little pictures on our mental TV screen determined by the script written by the expectations of other people.

Sometimes we get lost in these roles that come with expectations. We believe this is who we are meant to be and if we change then we aren't being true to ourselves. Sometimes you always live up to the expectations that come with your character, that you wish no one expected anything from you and you can surprise them. You can develop your own expectations and not let how other people see you affect the decision of who we will become in life.

Response to Part 1 of Banach Lecture

In the last paragraph I agree with David Banach when he says, "Each of us is trapped within our own mind" because we all have thoughts and feelings that we keep to ourselves. Even though we let our closest friends in on some of the thougts and feelings that we all still hide maybe because of fear, insecurities, or judgement. We are trapped in our mind in the sense that, when we are alone our mind jumps from one thought to another or just constantly replays that thought or memory in our head whether it makes us happy or sad.
I disagree with Banach when he says,"unable to feel anything but our own feelings and experiences" because I feel that you can understand how someone else feels if you have gone through the same experience as them. Thats like if two friends had deaths in their families, they both understand what each of them are going through even if the people who died had different meanings to them. Each friend knows what it feels like to learn of a death, to be bombarded with "I am sorry for your loss." They know what its like when it feels like no one is allowing you to grieve because they are wondering how your doing and if your okay, when you aren't okay and want to be left alone. You may just want a close family member or friend to hold you and just allow you to cry because that is what you need to do to release a heavy feeling inside of you. But as much as you cry it still seems to loom over you like a dark cloud that hides the beautiful sunshine.