These experiences should matter so much to us, and all of us shouldn't have to have stroke or be a great writer to realize this. The privilege of being able to communicate and show passion through language is something we all take advantage of and we truly should look around us and see the bigger picture. Without language our world wouldn't function the same & for this reason that is why the issues of language matter.
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Experiences where language fails or happens to bring bliss into our lives matter so much in our world because they can change our entire view of something or someone. Language brings passion to a situation and without it, the whole situation is different. Jill Bolte Taylor completely lost the language in her own head for several hours, and that experience alone changed her entire view on life. The failure of language gave her a feeling of nirvana and let her feel energy as she has never felt it before. It amazes me that she could have her whole life changed just by language failing to work in her own brain. This experience made her feel bigger as a person and made her really appreciate the little things in life. We all truly need to realize how important our language is to us and use it to its fullest extent. We can make such a huge difference in things by just using our words differently and with passion, as Robert Hass represented in his poem. How can we learn more about language if we don't fully grasp what it is capable of doing?
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This should be very important to everyone, this incident that happened to Jill was very life changing I agree. It happened for a reason she might have been lost for 37 years, but that morning she found herself, she truly experienced something life changing. It was blissful, it never crosses our mind how important language really is, like Robert Hass was stating we don't grasp the true importance of language. We would be lost without language and that's why this issue of the importance of language does matter.
ReplyDeleteBecause Jill Bolte Taylor had a seizure, she got to experience pure bliss; the feeling described as nirvana. Usually having a seizure doesn't involve any benefits, but Jill's feeling of being one with the universe allowed her to view our world and herself differently. Who knew losing something as important as language could have such a huge impact on her?
ReplyDeleteLanguage is the keystone to our lives; it allows us to communicate our most inner thoughts to people. Language can bring passion to a situation, as Robert Hass mentions in his poem. I think one of the points of Robert Hass' poem was to get across the underlying theme of the importance of language. Without it, who knows what our world would look like today, and for that reason alone, I argue that language does matter.
This issue matters because it is very important to know just how we think. Language and thought are connected very closely. Jill Bolte Taylor, talks about how she had a stroke, and lost her Language. The poem talks about the loss of a language as a whole. It states that Thinking is about loss, in this it resembles all the old thinking. I think that this is trying to say how languages today resemble and use words from the languages of yesterday that are now dead today. But so what? Why does language matter and why does losing it matter? Language is the way that we communicate in detail, it gives us a way of thinking in great detail. I believe that you can think without language, however you cannot think in detail without it. Jill Bolte Taylor talks about the morning of her stroke, and how she was thinking but she could not connect things in her head. She states that the molecules of the wall blended with the molecules of her arm. She had to be thinking to know this, however she could not have the thought process to connect the ideas that the molecules of the wall were different from the molecules of her arm. These issues matter because this is what creates detail.
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ReplyDeleteThis idea of “la la land” and where we can forget any kind of stress and meaning is critical for our own health for being able to meditate and relax. What Robert Hass described in his poem was that words and objects are things that we make up and put together to make sense in the world. But what if we lose words and see from only our senses to feel the moment. Instead of analyzing and processing everything to understand how it fits in. Relax and pause, observe and be at peace in mind. Now what Jill Taylor experienced was not so much of a calm way. Her brain was shutting down from a stroke. And she described it to be peaceful and a state of explaining but only observing of what her surroundings. She comes out to say that if we all stopped and thought as ourselves as part of the surroundings and not as an individual the world would be a better place. In all, both of these people say it’s a good thing to think in feelings where there are no meanings and only be observant of your surroundings. That’s why I believe that having a time in meditation is excellent for our health.
Language is lost, so what? Language is lost, so we may finally understand what it is to find divinity in life. Even though experienced differently, Jill Bolte Taylor and Robert Hass both see the beauty of a lost language. As I listened to and read Taylor’s illustration of her own Nirvana as “[her] spirit soar[ing] free” and Hass’ description of the “body [being] as numinous as words”, I understood that language dissolves with anything from a stroke to just simply forgetting the words said from past conversations. Language feels important to us because it is the only thing that we know. However, we don’t remember the words said; it is the experience that resonates with us. Even though she couldn’t communicate, Taylor remembers how at peace she was, and even though Hass can’t remember everything said that night, he can still see and remember the flesh of it all. Language is important, but in bliss, it isn’t about the language.
ReplyDeleteWhy should it matter whether language is lost or not? Well the answer to that is simple, it doesn't. We have lived to learn that language is basically all we know. We know the differences between words and what things mean and how to write but so what? Most people don't use language as something good, we tend to take advantage of it and use it for our own selfish needs. When Jill Bolte Taylor lost her language all she could think was "it was beautiful there", being in bliss and feeling free was all that mattered, she had never experienced this peacefulness before and she loved it. She didn't even care that she had a stroke. She was just amazed at this blissful state. She felt free, open to the world. So small compared to all the space she surrounding her. The voice inside her head was just gone and it did not affect her in any way, she felt calm and at ease with herself. It may have taken her 8 years to recover but instead of looking at the negatives she looks at the positives and believes "we have the power to choose, moment by moment , who and how we want to be in the world.. I am the life-force power of the universe" She wants everyone to realize that we do have choice, we do have the power to make the world a better and peaceful place. She has experienced this first hand. This stroke was not a tragedy, but a lesson learned, and a meaningful one at that. Language ending would not be the end of the world because without it we have the power to control our own bliss.
ReplyDeleteThink of the bigger picture, or more like the general idea. Both Robert Hass and Jill Taylor talk about the loss of language and how it leads to a world of bliss, an actual world of wonder and perfection where even "the body is as numinous as words," meaning that things can be beautiful as the word that man call them. Jill Taylor describes the affects she was experiencing due to her stroke. As her stroke progressed, she began to lose the chatter in her head. She lost her language. However, as she lost her language, Taylor began to see and feel the world around her, see and feel the world as a whole and not just as " particular " things, as Hass would say. It gave her a feeling of peace and allowed her to see the beauty and splendor that the world has to offer. Robert Hass would then elaborate on "The Idea," Plato's Idea. He states that " The Idea, for example, that each particular erases the luminous clarity of a general idea." For those that don't know, Plato's idea is that real things differ from the appearances of things, meaning that things we think are real are not actually real. They are just appearances that humans made using language. Hass then goes on to say that these "particulars," these things we've created with words are erasing the general idea that shines upon the world. The human race creates pretty words and fancy idea in order to make real things appear beautiful causing us to lose the picture of the general idea. We are unable to see the magnificence of a thing for what it is and not for what we have created it to be. So what? Mankind now has the information needed to see the world in a different way, see it as a whole rather than particular individual items that will never be perfect. We have the choice and ability to be in nirvana, and with Hass and Taylor's experiences and teachings we might not have to lose language because of it, we could try to just look a little beyond it.
ReplyDeleteThe loss of language to most anyone would seem like a disastrous idea that in no way would help the human race move forward. Clearly after reading Hass's poem and listening to Jill, this is the exact opposite of the truth. Though language is the largest part of our identity that we have come to know since birth, Jill Taylor's biological interpretation of the right hemisphere pushes the limits we, humans, thought possible of the brain itself. Once Jill lost functionality from her left hemisphere she experienced this over whelming euphoric state that she describes as "Nirvana". She experienced the world for what it really was and felt a connection with all the objects and space around her, but with all of this came the loss of her ability to speak. So why does this matter? Humans have made a leap forward in knowledge, because of this information neuroanatomist's can delve even deeper into how the brain functions and what exactly it is capable of.
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