exposure
'vast' is a word i only ever applied to the ocean or the sea, as opposed to land. when i looked out over the endless blue, i thought that this landscape was vast.
after 2 weeks of exploring the southwest United States, i have learned that vastness is also a quality that applies to land. of course i should have known this. many places in the world are even more isolated and unpopulated than the southwestern united states, and vast stretches of unhuman-ed land are what i consider vast, so i could have realized this if i thought about it. but apparently, seeing is realizing.
travel radically changes perception. i had comprised my image of the entire western half of the united states based on pictures, movies, and my imagination. when i traveled here, all my previous conceptions were immediately scrapped. what i imagined was not how it is.
the Grand Canyon, for instance, is hyped up among travelers. seeing it makes one understand why. this canyon is not overesteemed. if one has seen pictures of the grand canyon, one gets the sense that it is beautiful. this is not the case. the canyon is more than beautiful. 2-D pictures lack all depth, and even if you see a 3-D model of the canyon, you still cannot imagine the actual size of it. as i said, seeing is realizing. it is realizing how deep, how, long, wide, seeing is perceiving. to be honest, the grand canyon was too much to comprehend, and people easily give up on things they can't understand. i suggest either hiking inside the canyon or going somewhere smaller.
at any rate, the world's geography is fascinatingly diverse, and travel exposes its quirky characteristics, in order to humble you, its lowly yet lovely inhabitant.
rote-ness
allow me to complain for just a moment. i need to release this negativity and writing helps me.
memorization is THE worst form of learning. in fact, it is an insult to the concept of learning to even include it under this category. i was studying for an exam and all i had to do was memorize facts and dates and names and i felt oppressed because i felt like a puppet. the only reason i was memorizing was for the teacher and for the grade. memorization is oppressive because it stifles creativity and allows no opportunity for independent thought. furthermore, i will wake up tomorrow and will have forgotten everything i "learned" for the exam, as i did for all the others this quarter-this is because i was not made to think about the material. i simply looked at words on a page. but when i am forced to think about the meaning of historical events, then i remember them.
i agree that memorization may be a necessary evil-learning languages, for example, is impossible in a non-native context without memorizing certain vocabulary and grammatical structures. but even this is not ideal. one can learn a language the same way we did as babies, without memorization, by immersion in the native country. instead of converting the word "table" into "mesa," a native speaker points to a table and says "mesa." the learner then has the image in his/her head, instead of the word, because words are arbitrary.
i also agree that in order to think about the Spanish civil war, it is important to know when it occurred and between what groups. memorization, however, stops there, which is why it is the worst form of learning. nothing means anything without its meaning-does it make sense? the Spanish civil war means nothing to me unless i understand the effects of it on Spanish civilians, how it has affected their lives today, and how such a war can be avoided in the future.
learning is first selfish in nature. one has to learn for oneself in order to use his/her knowledge to help others. memorizing, as i said, is for the exam; it is not for me. i learned nothing and therefore, i can help no one.
the world around me
A few minutes ago I glanced out the window and was profoundly disturbed by a what I saw. A robin was hopping around the grass, plunged her beak into the ground, and pulled up a worm. The worm flopped out of her mouth but she quickly picked it up back up and swallowed it. This all occurred in less than 10 seconds and I was shocked to witness the reality of the animal world and the quick death of the worm. That is not to say that the human world is nothing like the animal one, in fact part of what disturbs me is the possibility that they are in fact, quite similar. The worm was living and then he wasn't. It was so matter of fact, it caught me completely off guard. I had been engrossed in an essay analyzing artwork of the Spanish painter Goya and three feet from my chair the animal world performs its precept: eat or be eaten. The worm, of course, was helpless, which tells me that in nature, everything has its role; perhaps it is not so chaotic and mysterious as it seems. It is simply the way things are. When this transfers to the human world, however, it becomes deflated. Death is certainly inevitable, but doesn't it usually seem an injustice? Something about this unfairness makes me question whether it is simply the way things should be.
