This semester I am taking Anthropology, British Literature Before 1830, Critical Introduction to Literature, Math 1010 and American Social Dance. At times I feel that my brain will never adjust to which class I am attending because I have such a variety of subjects to focus on. Keep in mind that I never took a liking to education growing up but learned an appreciation for it later in life. So if you've taken more credit hours than I am currently taking, be gentle to my petty intellect. I'm improving.
I have noticed a common theme among all of my classes. Everything relies on the perception of the experience. You can sit back and watch the news or a documentary and believe that you truly understand the natives of another country at war. You can study in class and you can even go directly to the culture and study their ways yourself but this will never mean that you are the right person to interpret that culture. Only the people themselves can tell their own story. The only thing we can do is give our interpretation according to what we saw, heard, touched, smelled and tasted. Because we are so influenced by what our own society judges to be normal, our interpretation of another's culture will never be correct.
I cannot claim to understand what it means to be homosexual and I cannot understand what it means to be Catholic. I can give you my interpretation of what they are and the reasons why I support certain causes. Are my opinions subject to change? Yes. I went from believing in gun control, to not believing in gun control to expressing my reluctance to own a gun, to just leaving the subject be. I went from thinking that Homosexuality was the destruction of the family, to I don't hate you but I still don't think you should get married, to let them be but stay away from me, to confused, to why do I think I am any better than they? to they are people with wants and desires and deserve what I have, to we are no different, we all just want to be loved and not have to fake it for the rest of society. My views on abortion have not changed much but are less extreme believing in the review of ever case. I went from environmentalists are crazy people who want to enslave us by making us live in T-pees to global climate change is a hoax, to even if you don't believe in it there is no reason to trash the world, to woah, the oceans are getting warmer, the ice caps are melting, we have more sporadic weather and all this at an excelled rate than has happened in the past. It is good to have a change in attitude and I hope I continue to change.
It is what I have seen, experience first hand that makes me feel this way. I know there are many of you who do not agree and maybe you have had different experiences than I have. If you can let me know what those are maybe I can try to see things from your angle and make different judgments. If I offend you, let me know why and maybe I can feel and understand what makes me offend you. That's all for now.
