Bewilderment is the feeling of being lost but with a familiar feeli of where you are where you can be safe. It is important to our lives because it gives us some comfort when being put into new situations and offers an opposite idea against clarity which is being completly sure of surroundings actions and ideas one of these concepts can not exist without the other. Bewilderment offers an ability to look at things from a new perspective and get new understandings about subjects from around the world.

What is Bewilderment?

Bewilderment is the great unknown of the future, we don’t understand what may lay ahead of us in our life. It’s the “why” of curiosity of adventure that humans chase. I defined it as a wonder of the unexplained future that allies. In the short story BEWILDERMENT by Fanny Howe, she talks about the subject of how it’s used in our lives such as we all have our own personal views on the uncertainty of the world such a questioning everything in the world, about unproved science and religion. She talks about how it’s more like a dream and we want to believe that our fantasy is the truth. She pictures is as if we were walking on a spiral outwards with no end. We just move around and explore but never gain any steps forward. There I disagree and say that we just don’t keep moving forward unaware of what we do. I say that we take those steps and gain some ground to advance in our lives that’s why we seek knowledge and religion. Certainty is only gained by someone’s or ones self’s personal experience most of the time and it’s very critical that it plays a huge role in our lives. This is why, we make judgments and life decisions based on experience. This is very important because without it we will always repeat the same mistakes in our lives and we will live in a world of Bewilderment forever and never advance in anything. So I say that we will need both in life to fuel our adventure side and our wanting of understanding. And then comes results or experience which turns into certainty. So life needs both not just one because we can’t always repeating what we already did and we need to build up knowledge of what we learned. And we will never know everything because after all we are only human and we will continue to explore new things.

Bewilderment

The thought of Bewilderment is constantly questioning things that we believe to exist in our reality. So we think that there is a reality that we live in but really society is found to be only a dream. We live in our imagination of what has already happened and is now seen to be a figure of a dream. What if what we know; what we see is not real. Its just an animation of what happened in the past life of ourselves so that we can continue to be curious and question life as it is. We as humans question societies actions and what we don't know. We try to figure out things because we are curious. the only certain things we know are the thoughts of experience and how it happened that is the only known outcome that has em upon us.

Bewilderment: Is it necessary?

In Fanny Howe’s essay, Bewilderment, Fanny explains what she believe bewilderment is. She connects bewilderment to uncertainty. By using the reference of a dream as bewilderment her idea of the unrestricted boundaries bewilderment becomes clearer. In a dream one’s world is limited to what they know and see. Nothing else exists outside the dreamer’s knowledge. Reality is not much different than this. Bewilder by definitions mean to cause to lose one’s sense of where on is.  Howe blames language as a contributor to the confusion we suffer in our everyday life. We cannot, with in our existing languages, express multiple actions taking place at a single instance. This limit one sense of direction and understanding of what is going on around them and there for leads to wilderness and uncertainty. This sense of bewilderment and uncertainty can be beneficial because it cause one to question. Through questioning what may seem obvious we discover and expand. Not only will one discover what something truly is but what it is not. On the other hand certainty is also necessary because without it we would question everything and nothing could be true. 

What Is Bewilderment ?

Before hand, my understanding of Bewilderment was unclear. After, reading Edward Abbey’s short story, Nature and the Environment, and other story Bewilderment. I grasped a better understanding of what bewilderment is. What I came to discover is that bewilderment is to be confused and uncertain. That life is constantly changing and unknown. These unknowns make people fill with curiosity and widen their minds. I love how these words opened my mind. In Nature and the Environment Author Edward Abbey paints a vivd and descriptive image in the readers mind with his way with words. He makes the reader feels as if they are in the dessert with him, he most defiantly makes the words jump off the page. I really enjoyed how Edward Abbey took the time to write about all the things he saw such as the birds and the way the wind sounded. He stressed an importance on the details which I feel is important in life since many people let it fly over their heads. I came to the conclusion that the author Edward Abbey is a very environmentally friendly, now that isn’t to say that bewilderment is tied in with nature. I just think thats how Abbey wanted to describe it since he has a passion for nature. Bewilderment to me means confusion in life, in all it’s aspects whether that be school, friendships, marriage, career, or romantic relations. I feel as if bewilderment is fitting to almost everything because life itself isn’t certain and that leads people to be confused and uncertain.  

Bewilderment without it life becomes stale

Abbey is a beautiful writer.  He paints a picture for the reader by not telling us about the desert but showing us the “the voice of the desert rising to a demented howl and blotting out sky and sun behind yellow clouds of dust, sand, confusion, embattled birds, last year’s scrub-oak leaves, pollen, the husks of locusts, bark of juniper . . .”  I have never been to the desert, but Abbey knows exactly how to make his words jump off the page and pull the reader into this Hellish, magnificent place. He sees a paradise of life and beauty within the dead land "Life not crowded upon life as in other places but scattered abroad in sparseness and simplicity, with a generous gift of space for each herb and bush and tree, each stem of grass, so that the living organism stands out bold and brave and vivid against the lifeless sand and barren rock.” Abbey is completely blow away by the vast landscape that lays before him bewildered by the complete diversity in the environment and the species that live there.

There is such a wonderment experienced by the Abbey he loves the park that he watches over. Every morning he watched the bird sign their song. Maybe to mate maybe to not be lonely. But when it comes to the snakes he’s baffled by them. At one point there is a wedge head under his trailer right between his heals. And even he had the ability to kill he would hesitate Abbey even says “I’d rather kill a man than a snake.” Showing his attachment to nature. A couple days later he see to gopher snake start to perform a dance which strongly resembles one done by lovers. The ranger slowly crawls toward them watching their every move their winding and unwinding. He watches from a snake’s-eye level as the two gopher snakes put on a performance for him.  He is not afraid to get down in the dirt, up close and personal with the couple.  Even when they notice him and advance in his direction, he is “paralyzed by wonder” and does not move. Abbey’s complete connection to the world around him, his being mystified by the complex animals around him make you realize that if you didn’t have bewilderment if your life it would be quite boring. Nothing would shock you, spark that thought of “Wow would you look at that?”

Bewilderment and Certainty: The Broken Knife and The Heart of Iron 3

Bewilderment is the break of one’s daily pattern with the unforeseen. Bewilderment goes against all of the experience a person has and acts as a personal test. A test that measures how well a person can conquer the unknown. Certainty comes from all of the experience a person has, Edward Abbey’s experience with the bullhead ensured that he felt safe around the snake. Certainty is needed in our lives because it allows us to trust the world, without trust we wouldn’t be able to get anything done, because we’d always doubt the end result. Bewilderment is important because it’s fun. Finding a rattlesnake between your legs might not seem awesome at the time, but afterwards it definitely makes a good story. If everything was a pattern the world would be too boring. Let me give another example with the immortal and grand show that is Spongebob Squarepants. When Squidward has had enough torture and decides to venture out to Tentacle Acres (I googled it) he loves his new home, all of the people are like him and every day he does what he loves. But then tragedy strikes, and Squidward gets bored of living every day the same way, he misses Spongebob, he misses bewilderment. We need spongebob in our lives to keep it fresh, to introduce the unknown, to meet the unexpected. Without squarepants we would all be roundpants, never able to be content and fit in the flat chair of life. Oh and we need bewilderment too.

Least and most trustworthy the least trust worthy sense I have is vision for many factors one being that I am visually impaired and need contacts to see and without them I would not be able to distinguish anything it would all just look like black silloutes around me. I also can not see at night so without light I would be completly blind and finally the eyes can make you see things that aren't really there like when you Think you see someone you know and you turn back and it's not really them. The most reliable sense I have to say would be my sense of taste because when you eat something new you can relate it back to something you have eaten before like my friend has told me shark taste like chicken is it really chicken no but he can relate the flavor and texture back to what is familiar. Your sense of taste can also tell you when something taste off or if something needs to be added to it and also give you cravings for food you need in your body.

Reliable and Unreliable: Which is the Most Trustworthy?

After listening to the podcast "Colors" and reading "How We Listen" by Aaron Copland, I believe that our least reliable sense is our eyesight or seeing. It's not trustworthy, the little girl that didn't know the sky was blue until she was introduced to the color believed that the sky was white for the longest. Also the fact that there are so many more species that can see more colors than us gets me to believe that we only see a fraction of the world for what it really is. Imagine have 16 receptors like the mantis shrimp or even just 2 more than we have now, we would see the world in a whole new different way, and it would open us up to an entirely new world.

The most reliable of the five senses we have, is the sense of hearing. This sense just needs to be trained or it needs to flourish, for example a blind person can't see, but his sense of hearing is phenomenal they don't need to see their hearing is there vision. They develop their hearing to a stage that they hear things an average human being wouldn't be able to hear. We all have different levels of hearing if tuned we would be very extraordinary human beings, we all hear things differently, but this sense is the most reliable.  

Senses and Objectivity: Complimentary or Oxymoron?

After listening to the podcast “Colors,” and reading, “How We Listen,” I have come to the conclusion that on some level, all of our senses are subjective. All of one’s senses are detected using the human brain, and while we may all have the same ability to pick up on these senses, it is how we interpret our senses that usually differ person to person. With that being said, I think that one’s sense of touch is their most reliable trait, while the rest of one’s senses are nearly evenly less reliable, with one’s sense of hearing being the least so. 

The reason one’s sense of touch should be considered as the most reliable is because it is the least subjective. If a group of people were to touch a surface that, by scientific standards, would be undeniably rough, it would likely feel rough to most, if not everybody. The sense of touch requires the least amount of critical thought by the brain, and is the least likely to be tampered with. Some specific cases, like paralysis or arthritis, can hinder one’s sense of touch, however, they still don’t make the sense of touch any more subjective or unreliable.

On the other hand, one’s senses of listening and sight, for example, are quite unreliable. The author of “How We Listen” even went so far as to say that many aren’t conscious of an entire plane of listening when hearing music. He describes this plane as the “Musical Plane”— a plane in which we listen to music purely for the components of the music itself, like the harmony, rhythm, melody, etc. He also said, however, that people that are trained to listen to music in this way often rely on this plane of listening too much. There is a very fine line when it comes to how much or how little we should be tuned into this plane of listening, let alone the other two planes the author describes in unison. The author himself even doesn’t seem 100% sure how to describe a perfect sense of listening to his audience, purely because of its subjectivity. Similarly, in “Colors,” it is nearly immediately stated that there is no objective color. Color is interpreted different to everybody. It was even stated that 1 in every 10 males have some form of color blindness. So, with all of this being said, color may be interpreted very differently and more vividly by, say, an artist, rather than a musician; a song may also be interpreted more vividly by a musician rather than said artist. It is very difficult to tell. This is why to me, these two senses are very unreliable when it comes to objectivity.

Seeing and Feeling: Trusting Your Senses

                It is well known that our eyes are more that capable of playing tricks on us. Whether it be by the means of a random pattern of colors or through being preoccupied with other thoughts and they begin to seep from your mind to your eyes. Our sense of site is by far the least trustworthy of our senses. By now the act of seeing has become muscle memory, your first impression of most of the world is based off what one is able to see. The sense of site cannot dig deeper, it is limited to simply looking at the cover of the book, not what is within.

                The sense of feeling however, the sense of touch, provides our brains with highly critical information. With a sense of touch, we are able to establish limits and feel them physically, we are actually able to feel the existence. Touch is the most trustworthy of the senses. Whenever you to feel your heart beating in your chest or get a painful paper cut, it is a factual confirmation that we are still alive and human.

Vision and the Lack of Trust

           My thoughts about senses where quite plain before reading How We Listen, by Aaron Copland and before listening to Colors the podcast produced by Radiolab. After I completed listening to Colors I began question my own eyesight and also came to the conclusion that vision is my least trusting sense.

            I am one of the 10% males that are colorblind and have honestly never trusted my own eyesight. When the podcast Colors broke down the concept of light it even made me more untrustworthy of my sight.  Colors talks about how many animals see different things based on different visions. For example there are dogs who have only two cones, certain females who can see more colors and also a Mantis Shrimp who posses’ the most high quality vision. This leads me to believe that there are so many ways to see the world when it comes to vision and so many people see it differently. That makes me uncertain about my vision because who’s to say my vision is right or a dogs vision is right. The thing is, is that nobody is right because we all perceive the world differently.

I don't feel blue, but I hear you: A look at the the strongest sense of perception

     After reading "How We Listen" by Aaron Copland and after listening to the RadioLab podcast entitled "Colors," I have come to the conclusion that out of the 5 senses we humans possess, sight is the most untrustworthy sense while, on the other hand, the ability to hear is our most trustworthy sense.
     As illustrated in "Colors," the sense of sight is very, if not completely, untrustworthy. There is no real way to know if we are all seeing the same colors and, also there are many colors that we cannot see without prior knowledge of these specific colors. For example, the young daughter of one of the speakers on the podcast had no idea that the color of the sky was blue until she was given context clues to figure out the color. Originally, the girl saw the sky as white for weeks until one day she began to see blue. The color grew on her and mislead her for a long time. Additionally, it has been seen in older texts that many ancient civilizations (such as the Greeks) rarely described the color blue due to the fact that this color wasn't around much in their time. Their eyes had no reason to see this color because of this, so when they saw this color they didn't know they were seeing it.
     The ability to hear, on the other hand, is incredibly trustworthy if you give it the respect it needs to flourish. This is because everyone hears things in their own special way. This is conveyed in "How We Listen" when Copland states that "if [music] is a great work of art don't expect it to mean exactly the same thing." Copland agrees with me in the fact that hearing something is unique to each individual and that there is a true beauty in finding what something you hear means to you, specifically.

Least Trustworthy Sense.

Examining both the podcast and reading I conclude that the least trustworthy sense out of the five is the ears and here’s why. Our ears and our minds can do so many things compared with our eyes which could only see certain colors, and it depends on how our eyes are built. On the podcast they went in depth with the way our eyes were formed and explained experiments with monkeys, and how we can change the way they see color. From before the eye injections and after they began to see the color red. Something new to them and they were amazed about it. Also NPR found out that some rare women can see colors that can’t be explained with the normal colors. They asked the woman about what did she see when she looked at the sky. She said “blue with spots of pink and light red around the clouds. So our eyes can’t see every color, and we already know it based on the way our eyes are compared to a butterfly as the butterfly can’t see all kinds of colors in the spectrum. So because our vision is depends on our eye structure it doesn’t lie to us but it’s in our ability to listen is where we misinterpret things. Now for I believe that everyone listens to things differently and in the short story How We Listen. We can interpret things so differently in single conversations. We tend to listen to what we want to know and ignore what we don’t want. Copland explains it in three planes the sensuous the expresses and the sherry musical plane. Because it based on our own personally and how things apply to us and if we are in denial of things that we don’t want to believe in. he give the example of listening to music and some example jus the sheer pleaser of the notes and rhymes and nothing else about the lyrics it’s the playing of background music all the time type of people. Now the way music has a meaning and it is expressed to the type of people that understand the purpose of the song and how it applies in their lives. Last we have the folks that listen and it brings back old times and memories of the past. The music can paint a picture for people. These examples show that three people can listen to the same song and have completely different meanings of that song. So that said I believe that out of the five senses the least trustworthy is hearing.