Experience is what we have gone through. It is what we saw, thought, felt, said, heard, and so forth. It can be personal or collective (social). Personal experiences, unless you share them with other people, no one will know. No one will truly understand what you have experienced. Collective experiences, things we experienced together, we may share. However, in those experiences, we also have personal experiences.
Look! We all suffer from the impacts of the disaster, but a number of people may take advantage of it. A poison for someone may be honey for someone else. Is this telling us that we have different realities? No… it is not. It is telling us that we have different meanings of the same experience.
The meaning of experience, particularly a personal one, is only truly known by you. That true meaning no words can describe. Yet, you know what it is… You understand it very well, primarily when you close your eyes and turn inward.
Words, then, reinterpret the experience when you try to describe it. This is when you want to be heard… This is when you want to be understood. To this end, you must use words other people use. This way, you want all the processes that you have gone through to be known. understood by other people.
Does it work? To some extent, maybe… But do not expect too much…
Language is social… It is owned by the community, not just you. You may say that “I saw light,” and they know what you saw. They may imagine what you saw, but there is no way for them to know the brightness of the light you saw. The same applies when you say “I am happy to think about her.” They can imagine what you feel, but there is no way for them to feel what you feel.
Yes, language gives meaning to your experiences… Yes, language represents experiences… However, some experiences are destined to be kept in the private area inside the chest and the head. Use the words you think will represent your experiences most accurately, and find that some people, no matter how intellectual they are, will just not get the point. They either misunderstand or won’t understand…
So, does language represent the meaning of your experiences? To some extent, maybe…
No Responses