Everyday we walk through the halls of the school with information circling around our heads. Some of this information is solid based on hard true fact that cannot be broken. While most of this information is gathered through our sensory and our own personal abilities to make sense of the world around us. These two similar but fundamentally different types of knowledge essentially create the blocks from which we create the world around us. To know is to have a complete understanding of anyone idea, topic, action, emotion, or thought. Knowing is a confirmed idea, it is placed in the mind with at tag saying that this is reliable knowledge that can be fallen back on. Now the question must be ask how does one know? At this moment I know that my swim team lost our meet today, I also know that I swam a 51.1 in the 100 yard freestyle these things I know because they are straight forward and are expressed to me without any bias or any need to assess what happened. My knowing that this happened is simple we lost 96-90 no way around it no need to draw a conclusion. A lot of our knowledge is drawn from simple occurrences and facts. However what about our knowledge of people? People don't have a rating from 1 to 100. To know what kind of person someone is you must gather information from what you hear see and witness about this person. You must then perceive through your findings what kind of person they are. Ones Perception of things is much different from just knowing things because perception contains the human elements of bias, and self interest. If knowledge is the understanding of anyone idea then perception is the usage of these ideas to form a complex bias thought on a topic or action. While just simply knowing something is a result of a concrete happening ones perception of things is based off of thousands of details and intricate weaving's of what we know.
In many ways knowing and perceiving go hand in hand one cannot exist with out the other. The concept of perception relies on the knowledge that we know to contrast and compare different things to create a justified idea about an issue in our minds. Perception is at the mercy of knowing. If one only knew a little bit of information their perceptions of the environment around them would be very wrong and vague. One must have enough knowledge of things to be able to gain the extra sense of the world that perception gives you. Through perception one is able to build emotional ties with the world around them. Their reaction and feelings all rely upon the perception of the situation at hand. Perception is a critical tool through which people create their sense of the world. Without perception we would know no sense of what to fear, no sense of what is good or evil, we would be able to connect any emotional value with any actions. If we think of perceiving as drawing a conclusion we can see the reliance that each maintains upon the other. To draw a conclusion you must have solid data which in this case is knowing. However these knowing these ideas means nothing without a conclusion. Only through the intertwining of perception and knowing are we able to understand our surroundings.
When one is searching for information when perceiving there minds often associate and create insight with things that are known about themselves. When ever someone gains knowledge through perceiving they are using information about themselves to make the ideas more relevant. That is why knowing yourself is extremely important. Only through knowing yourself can one truly connect and create good insight into the events that are going on around them. The depth of ones knowing has a huge impact on the importance and the validity of the presumptions one makes. By knowing the depth of a piece of information one can perceive much more from this than any other knowing. The more deep ones knowing is and the more one knows themselves the stronger and there views on their world will be.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Monday, December 10, 2007
To Know Thy Self is Devine
In the course of ones life if they can say that they truly know themselves they have accomplished much. One of the hardest and most rewarding things to be able to is to discover who you truly are as a person. This sounds simple but imagine all the times people are caught between decisions. For example when I was applying to Providence I had to decide whether I would pursue a degree in political science or pre-law. I couldn't for the life of me decide, I keep confusing my own will with my parents and my mentors ideas. I just couldn't decide what I truly wanted to do. This was because even today I still don't truly know myself. That day however I learned a little more about who I am as a person. As I made my decision I thought about a lot of things including all the reasons I ever wanted to pursue these two fields. As I thought I remembered why I had originally been interested in history and the study of government. I thought of my childhood watching the history channel and being fascinated with the different history's and politics of foreign nations. I related everything to the tails of great American heroes. Then I began to ponder why I had considered pre-law. The answer was my interest in pre-law was just and extension of my great passion for history and politics. The idea of pre-law was put into my head by my parents who believed that it would help me to be better prepared for law school after my stead in college. Although their idea was valid and had no manipulating malice the fact was that it didn't fit who I was. I love history and because I realized this about myself I gained greater knowledge about not only what I want to do with my life but also information that I can use the next time in need to make a tough decision. To truly know ones self is all empowering, imagine all the insight one could possess if they just knew what to pursue. Some people spend their entire lives looking for the right job that fits them or looking for their purpose but can never find what really makes them happy. When one is truly aware of themselves they are able to not only master their strengths but also avoid and control their weaknesses. My greatest weakness is my tendency to procrastinate. I always put off school work or other things I need to do. I wait too long at times to start my work and I have seen it affect my life, I have missed out on many things that I truly wanted because I waited to long. my tendency to procrastinate has hurt me not only in school but in my personal life. My parents and my family are often very upset with me over an assortment of common grievances that all stem from my inability to just get my act together and finish my work. For me this terrible weakness is truly a plague, because inside I know I want to get my work done I just can seem to settle down and do it. I can remember literally wasting an entire Saturday doing a simple little project for my social studies class because if couldn't seem to get into the work I just sat around moving from room to room doing stupid stuff and playing around. Ten hours later I am staring at the clock wondering were all the time went. I hate having weakness I feel that there is not excuse for being particularly weak in one areas however at times I just cant seem to help myself, its like I am impeding my own forward progress because I cant get out of my own way. It is extremely frustrating to have to deal with this kind of hindering problem because I also know what it feels like to be right on the ball. There are times when I am ready and on time with everything getting my work done and doing what I have to do. When I compare the to selves I begin to realize that my problem lies more with my motivation than any inability to focus. because i know myself I am able to combat my weakness by creating goals for myself to keep on task but for me my greatest weakness will always be my procrastination. I would like to think that I process many strengths that can be considered my great strengths. However I believe my greatest strength is my shrewdness. Throughout my life I have used my cunning to get me out of tight situations and to gain superior edge on my opponents. I have always been able to speak well and this is important when you need to talk yourself out of trouble. I have always trusted my mouth to win in situations where a clever tongue is the only affective means of escape. When I was younger I used my shrewdness and my ability to speak to get me out of many slippery situations at our old pool club. One example of this was when I changed the specials board on the snack bar and wrote explicit things on it I was able to convince the club manager that it was not me and in fact none the kids at the club because none of use were in the vicinity at the time of the incident. These skills are not only useful for getting out of trouble but they are also helpful in all of life. Being prepared to talk or argue something is a skill that few people have. to present a clear logical argument with out planning ahead of time is an extremely useful skill. being able to think on your feet is something that i believe is invaluable in this world, it gives you me not only power but also a sense of confidence that allows me to function better. I have really gained appreciation for the power that a series of quick well placed words can have on people. I believe my ability to think quickly and cleverly I still my greatest strength. People often say that they have trouble writing or talking about their strengths and weaknesses. They say that they feel uncomfortable bragging about their strengths and that they don't recognize their faults. This is true in some cases however if you know yourself well this should be no challenge. I feel that I know myself quite well, I had no problem looking at myself from a distance and realizing what my faults and strengths are. My faults are very apparent in my person however my strengths are harder to define because a lot of them intertwine into one idea. However, I can say with certainty that I have a very good fix on what my strengths and weakness are. I don't know if most people take the time to sit down and think. Who am I as a person? If more people did then they would not have such a hard time speaking about their strengths and weaknesses. The only reason I can see why people difficulty finding the pros and cons of their character is that they are not familiar with their own person. they don't know what makes them tick or what drives them to succeed. These motivating concepts have been left unanalyzed within many of these peoples heads. They are constantly unconsciously driving them to do things however the people who they run have no idea why they are doing what they are doing because they never took the time to self reflect on who they are. That is why people who don't know themselves have no idea of what their best traits are and those who have looked into their own souls know who they are.
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