Experience
When one hears the word "experience" the average among humanity tends to think of a few things. Wisdom, ability to recognize patterns, confidence under a repeated routine or situation, and basic understanding of a given situation. The definition for experience as a whole is labeled as:
Experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event. The history of the word experience aligns it closely with the concept of experiment.
Which has always interested me. Through experimentation and pattern recognition of what is right and wrong, what works and doesn't when applied to a certain situation, allows one with no experience before hand of that particular field to apply that new "experience" and "knowledge of the experience" to an almost unlimited similar experiences/experiments. Examples are; driving a pedal bike should give you experience towards a motorcycle. A car to the ability to drive a go-kart and so on. Within those examples are a myriad of inner workings within the mind that humanity is unaware of. The confidence one gains from the age of 16 when they first learn to drive to 25 is exponential in growth. Which of course creates (possibly falsely) the confidence to not only drive under various conditions (rain,sun,snow) but also under various types of vehicles (van, car, truck) instinctively. And then to do that with a certain degree of confidence because of the time required. All those experiments with driving all relate and condense into a basic understanding of 'experience' and human conditions apply that experience to now anything and everything labeled as a motorized vehicle (even now to a lawnmower, and a racing videogame).
What is missing from a general definition of experience is the persons ability to recognize within the moment that they are learning something new. That this new 'experiment' they are undertaking (and new I mean not in their A-typical routine as of yet) automatically leads to experience. However not all experience is the same. If a person is unable to recognize a pattern of that experiment, that persons experience on that matter will be far less then that of a person who is fully immersed within that experiment with the inclination of disciplined thought to understand... 'this experiment will lead to experience for them'. Once conscious of that fact, the mind is helped to understand the exacting scenario in which the person is immersed within in.. Examples: Skydiving w/tandem. One can choose to 'ride' out of a plane with the instructor, relying on them to balance, maintain, and eventually pull the cord and land. While another person might want to control that experience (Even tho the instructor is still there) and jump out themselves, learn to upright, balance, keep an eye on the altimeter and eventually pull the cord at the altitude in which you were trained just minutes before the jump. Both examples of that experience leads to the same conclusion (jump outta a good plane and land on the ground) but only the latter (with conscious control, real time reflection and gauging of the situation) allows for growth in confidence, experience, and self esteem. The feeling of accomplishment is exacerbated by the known fact to yourself, that you did not fail yourself under that extreme situation... Which one does not get by simply closing the eyes and falling and relying on another person to see you through the experiment.
That example when they tell the story of "I jumped outta a plane" only creates a falsehood/fallacy of truth within their mind.. Which if they are telling that story with the ego and confidence of someone who actually took control.. shows a pattern of lying to oneself in order to appease their ego in the facade of "I can't do no wrong". Under that falsehood, the confidence one gains isn't the same as doing that experiment with virtue and true drive.. Within their story is justification of their actions, and justification to themselves to warrent a larger reaction then what is expected. Had the audience of their story known their idea of jumping out of a plane was sheer panic/terror with a blind eye towards the expereince, their story would not be a story to be told, but a story to be hidden. And the fact that they are consciously aware of their lie while telling the story only helps facilitate the idealism of the "party phase" within the mind, and means they are only telling the story for the idealism of popularity and of social growth. Not growth of themselves.. The lies we tell ourselves with the notion of growth is disturbing.
There was no need to lie to tell a story of that. The person coulda understood the truth of the matter and realized a first jump out of a 15,000 foot drop should induce panic and terror. Worked that into their story with a solom vow to themselves to face it again this time without the fear of a first time expereiment under that situation should lead to. Within that story of truth the audience would understand the enviroment and the humility needed to tell honesty what happened within their mind. It wouldn't make one less of a person to admit to fear in the deepest sense of the word (failing yourself) because the majority of humanity wouldn't even want that expereince in the first place (you jumped outta a plane? You're crAzY!) That's the mindset in which growth occurs, facing your own truth and not blunting, hiding, or reducing the sheer fact that you failed yourself under that most extreme of moments... But they won't... they will use that one time only as a pinnicle of their life, to create a "new you" based off a fallacy even tho they are aware that their expereince isn't what it should have been. Which more then likely is based off a pattern within them of consitantly building up small victories as large ones, and pushing the blame of a failure off on a 3rd party chaos factor. All to protect one's fragile lil ego.
Now once that pattern is established within the mind (lying to yourself to gain experience) a falsehood of confidence of course gets created, that then becomes a truth they discover on their own. That cyclic self sustaining pattern that's based off weak truths is what humanity seems to be running on as of late. Which makes any attempt to point out the falsehoods within their story come across as an attack upon their character.... Even tho there is truth within that attempt/attack against them,the person might simply be questioning the validity of their story to help facilitate an image of the person that is telling the story.. However the person that sees it as an attack is only seeing it that way subconsciously because their subconscious ego is telling them to defend their lie in fear that they are going to be forced to realize what they are telling is a lie to themselves. (consciously, you should know the true truth to every scenario you've ever lived)
Enough about the falsehoods of humanity and experience. What about those that are consciously aware of the situation? All their failings and victories in their life are pushed to the forefront to create a inner drive to be true and virtuous to not only themselves, but their character experience helps to create. For a lie to themselves is unheard of and basically incomprehensible to the reasoning of why. Using reflection and the minds ability to relive events that might have been subconscious at the time, the user can conjure up visuals and emotion linked to that experiment in experience to give themselves a 3rd party view at themselves within that moment, without the need for a camera in their face. After establishing a pattern of reflection based off truth and digestion of that reflection and facing your failings and victories with equal amounts of enthusiasm, then and only then will wisdom come from experience, which came from an experiment!
In conclusion , the trick to learning from experience seems to be the ability to not extenuate your own victories or failings too far to one end of the scale. Just because one failed themselves in one instance is no need to beat yourself up to the Nth degree when the person also has a set pattern of victories within a new experience as well. On the same token, there is no need to continually pat yourself on the back to the Nth degree for minor to medium victories in life. There is always a bigger fish, and your major victory/failings to yourself is certainly no measure for a larger victory/failings in the scope of history of man kind. From Alexander conquering the world at 21, to the failings of Hitler. But keep in mind, and keep in check that you have the ability in your mind to rationalize minor victories and failings to a far greater degree then any detached historical example of greatness... If left unchecked it will only destroy you and the the facade of the image you think you based your own character upon. Conscious awareness within that situation and real time redundant checks of progress allow you to accurately gauge your performance in a given experiment as long as you are willing to face failure. Facing that internally creates a strengthened mindset of active pattern recognition, that nobody not even god can take away from you, as long as you believe it to be the truth.. if you failed or not is only secondary to the experience.
It's not the victories in which we learn from. It's the failings of ourselves.
To further elaborate on this (because I can), based off my original dissertation above. Experience also needs a key player to rationalize it to the human mind. Like everything that we do, everything we walk the line with all comes down to time. Without the constant steady march of time, experience would be nothing. We'd have no self concept of experience because we would lack the fundamental reasoning and association of time. Theorist debate if the same theory of time is also which causes the by-product of our consciousness. That the overly complex nature of all our systems (from lymbic, to hormonal, electro-chemical etc) would not be able to have achieved the state of self awareness without the steady march of time. The one or two constants in our known universe (Change being another constant). Since it's a safe assumption that time existed before conscious man, it's safe to assume that the mind relies upon that exacting time.
© Kiehl 2007