I disagree with all your arguments. You say you like fireworks. You say they are "thrilling without reflection." Yet they prompt three reflective questions, which you dismiss as "political." You punctuate your statement with a stock image (captured via a camera) of a professional show put on by people you've never met. As someone who puts on those shows, and who has experienced a long line of close encounters with high-velocity burning metal, I wish to assure you that you are experiencing plenty of "reflection" through "mediated experience". You've also drawn this arbitrary line between "doing something" and "thinking about something" that is not only false, it's harmful. It is contrary to psychology. It creates a barrier between the action of something and the enjoyment of something. Further, by placing our experiential constellation out of bounds you are hamstringing both. Do you know what flow is? It's that state where you've done something enough that you not only do it without thinking, you enjoy it more than you do if you have to think about it. Flow is a manifestation of skill and practice that results in a sense of well-being and attentiveness. I enter flow when I photograph - and often, the photos that result are better for "reflection" than my experience of a sunset without a camera. There was a lunar eclipse last week. I saw it. But there was an annular eclipse two years ago and I photographed it. Guess which one I can remember more clearly? Robert McKee argued that a good storyteller can enchant his coworkers with the odyssey of his commute, while a bad storyteller can bore his coworkers with the death of her child. That's "reflection" and it's a fundamental part of experience, not a yang to its yin. More importantly, it illustrates the falsehood of dividing activities into "reflective" and "non-reflective" camps. To see a world in a grain of sand And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour. -William Blake That's "reflection." On nothing. And I have no idea how it can be constituted as "boring." Emily Dickenson never saw much beyond her front porch, yet she's worshipped for her reflections. Or maybe I don't get your point. Either way, know that your arguments made me angry.By unmediated, I mean without an intermediary -- no computer, no Twitter, no camera, no interpreter or guide, no priest or minister to stand between ourselves and the infinite. No words.
My point was that when I observe fireworks (although perhaps the Grand Canyon is a better example) -- I experience it as directly as possible through my senses. I was also trying to say that most of the time I "mediate" experiences by examining their impact or meaning. The thing is kb, I'm in complete agreement with you about remembering (enjoying?) the examined experience more (the eclipse you filmed). For some of us, reflection and experience are the same thing -- so intricately mixed together that there's no separating them. That's why the notion that one can have 70% experience and 30% reflection is nonsense to some extent (as you pointed out).
That was my argument to my step-father, that reflection is also experience. My meditation on experience and reflection needs more care and attention. One problem is likely with our understanding of the words "reflection" and "unmediated experience." Some people are unable to separate the two. Other people's experience of their lives makes it possible to actually say 70% experience/30% reflection. Outlander responded by noticing that more reflection might be warranted.I disagree with all your arguments.
Thank you for considering them. I agree with much of what you say. In a couple of cases, I will explain my meaning. (If my piece had been written better, no explanation would be necessary.) You say you like fireworks. You say they are "thrilling without reflection." Yet they prompt three reflective questions, which you dismiss as "political."
I wasn't dismissing the questions as political. I was trying to give an example of different ways one can look at fireworks: One can be thrilled by them and just take in the light and colour, or one can look at fireworks and consider them in other ways, rather than just as lights in the sky. I did not make that point clearly.You punctuate your statement with a stock image (captured via a camera) of a professional show put on by people you've never met. As someone who puts on those shows, and who has experienced a long line of close encounters with high-velocity burning metal, I wish to assure you that you are experiencing plenty of "reflection" through "mediated experience".
If you are saying here that the observer of the fireworks is experiencing another person's thoughtful designed and constructed work, I agree 100%. Examining the construction and design provides yet another way one can look at fireworks. (I do tend to use pretty lame pictures.)You've also drawn this arbitrary line between "doing something" and "thinking about something" that is not only false, it's harmful.
Good point. I am also inclined to doubt anything that is presented in a binary way. It is contrary to psychology. It creates a barrier between the action of something and the enjoyment of something. Further, by placing our experiential constellation out of bounds you are hamstringing both.
I'm not sure I was creating a barrier between the action and the enjoyment. I was, rather, exploring different ways of enjoying. I am surrounded by people who do not seem to me to reflect on their experiences. They move from experience to experience without pausing to look for patterns or to examine the effectiveness of actions or to examine whether the road they are on is taking them where they want to go. Perhaps you are lucky enough not to cross paths with non-reflective people. In the case of art, after an art event of some sort, they have nothing to say. They experienced it and enjoyed it, it seems, and that's enough. I far prefer to examine my enjoyment of it and ask why and how did certain parts speak to me. And then listen to the favourite parts that others mention, and so on. Robert McKee argued that a good storyteller can enchant his coworkers with the odyssey of his commute, while a bad storyteller can bore his coworkers with the death of her child. That's "reflection" and it's a fundamental part of experience, not a yang to its yin.
I am not suggesting, though, that reflection is a yang to the yin of experience.Or maybe I don't get your point. Either way, know that your arguments made me angry.
I appreciate your comments and would like to #writebetterdammit
So when restated, I don't disagree with all your arguments. I think your arguments lack clarity, and I think you're doing yourself a disservice by attempting to find correlation where there isn't any. So really, it comes down to what "reflection" means. I would argue that what you're calling "reflection" is much more of a process than an action. It's something you always do - sometimes more, sometimes less, and most assuredly there are people who do a lot more of it than others. I think what got my hackles up was the notion that "reflection" is something you have to stop and do - rather than simply being aware of your surroundings and evaluative of the perspective between you and everything else. "In the moment" or "not in the moment" are not, to me, quantifiable things... so putting a percentage on it misses the point. Particularly when you consider that anything you've experienced can be reflected upon at any point in the future as many times as you want... and anything you HAVEN'T experienced can be as well. "Experience" and "Reflection", by your definitions, are independent variables in my way of thinking. They are axes 90 degrees apart. They might not even meet at the origin. Attempting to tie the two together seems like forcing a relationship between the area of a right triangle and its color. After all, some people wander through life doing exactly jack shit without reflecting on it at all - and some people are Thor Heyerdahl, building a goddamn canoe out of reeds and sailing it across the pacific so he can write a book about it. L'il story about Frederick Forsythe: The author of Day of the Jackal did most of his research for his assassination of Charles De Gaulle in his head and in libraries, and it's an inordinately technical book. I would call that non-experiential but highly reflective. When he wanted to write a novel about a group of mercenaries overthrowing a small African nation, he got some of his buddies together and set out to overthrow Equatorial Guinea. no shit. I would call this a highly experiential and utterly non-reflective action - trying to start a goddamn war so you can write about starting a goddamn war is surely one of the least-examined ideas in the history of literature. Same guy, three years apart. I just don't think you can put the two together in any sort of reasonable way and find a correlation. Attempting to do leads you astray from the nine-fold path to enlightenment. or something. I'll say this - there is nothing that makes you quite so reflective as having finished a Los Angeles commute on an Italian superbike.I'm not sure I was creating a barrier between the action and the enjoyment. I was, rather, exploring different ways of enjoying. I am surrounded by people who do not seem to me to reflect on their experiences. They move from experience to experience without pausing to look for patterns or to examine the effectiveness of actions or to examine whether the road they are on is taking them where they want to go.