The Natural Distaste for Thought

I recall a moment in grade school when i was attempting to understand the distinguishment between the human consciousness and the body. I had spent the morning in an odd state of reflection - and found myself trapped into a staring contest with the mirror. This brought about questions, and later that day I walked up to my teacher and asked her how we can really define life when our knowledge of life was within the realm of existence itself. What (I believe) I meant when I said this was that 1.) our mode of thinking can never be truly objective and 2.) Why is it we cannot maintain that feeling of acknowledgement of existence we reach occasionally. I'm sure I meant more than this, but again, it was grade school and the term existence was hard enough to explain.

Her response was avoidance, and eventually she began interjecting humurous responses into my monologoue. I became frustrated and embarassed, and quickly went back to coloring and learning about silly grade school things.


This comic epitomizes this form of a typical response. The questions that existensialism raises are not as easily assesible as questions of Justice and the Good Will. Our inability to adequately answer these questions leaves us with a sense of dis-ease, and we find ourselves questioning peers. However, (unless they, too, are in an ethics class) they tend to avoid this form of exploration of knowledge. It leaves us feeling small, and traps us in a line of thought that can easily lead us away from "reality." Pleasure seeking activities such as reading fiction and conversin with friends are set to the side in favor of attempted understanding.

I've found that, like my teachers, peers often avoid this method of thought. It is uncomfortable, and the feeling of self-awareness is similar to that of an unwanted drug.

However, if one has never been in this form of discussion before - why is it that they know to avoid it? I can assure you, I didn't realize heights frightened me until I climbed a ferris wheel at a city fair and discovered I couldn't make myself climb back down. Seriously.

Sartre hits upon this initial moment of self realization: that of the gaze. He states that it is not until we realize we are being gazed upon that we further realize we are in a physical realm of existence that houses our consciousness. This moment of self-awareness fades away, only to resurface when questioned by peers or staring at a reflection.

Biologically, scholars have theorized that our strange feeling when observing relfection occurs as a side-effect of the mind's attempts at salvation. In our daily life we process information, and then quickly categorize and set it aside in favor of others. While typing this post I am sitting in a chair, and selecting keys with a keyboard. However, within moments of begining, I categorized and forgot about these sensations. No longer was I focused about the senstaion of sitting, the feeling of the keyboard keys, or the resistance of the chair. Instead - my mind relized that these feelings were continuous and sought out other information. It is a method of not only preventing insanity, but also of allowing the further aquisition of information.

This occurs when looking into a mirror. Once you brain realizes that you have been staring at the same thing for the past few moments, it starts to process new information. Your reflection becomes not something you are merely looking at, like when you comb your hair of brush your teeth, but instead something you are analyzing. You then start the strange pattern of recognition of existence, questioning "what it all means," and what you have to do with it. It is, indeed, a unique feeling.

This is why our peers and leaders recognize the strangeness observed with it, and often avoid true discussion with sly comments and super soaker attacks. It leaves us free from responsibility. Free from dis-ease and frustration. Free from recognizing the limits of our human reasoning.