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This is a broad question. It could be about anything. What comes to mind is things like understanding what is is like to have really bad parents when your parents were ok. Or understanding what it is like to feel like a different gender than you were born, if you are not like that. Or to understand what it is like to go through a trauma like rape, if you have not.
The revolutionary thing about being able to share information, write things down or take pictures/movies of them is that we can experience something we couldn't otherwise. No one person could ever have every experience there is to have in their lifetime, after all.
It is not the same as going through the personal expericence but it is a valid experiences nevertheless, provided it's kept in proper context.
Vicarious experience is better than no experience at all.
I don't know if you can fully appreciate it, but remember...even two people who have been through the exact same thing will have experienced it differently, be affected differently, etc. So just because a bunch of people have been through the same thing, they don't necessarily understand each other perfectly, either.
That being said, the most important part of the experience (what you learned from it) can often be gleaned without going through any of it. I can't tell you how much I have learned from the mistakes of others.
I don't know if you can fully appreciate it, but remember...even two people who have been through the exact same thing will have experienced it differently, be affected differently, etc. So just because a bunch of people have been through the same thing, they don't necessarily understand each other perfectly, either.
That being said, the most important part of the experience (what you learned from it) can often be gleaned without going through any of it. I can't tell you how much I have learned from the mistakes of others.
I don't know if you can fully appreciate it, but remember...even two people who have been through the exact same thing will have experienced it differently, be affected differently, etc. So just because a bunch of people have been through the same thing, they don't necessarily understand each other perfectly, either.
That being said, the most important part of the experience (what you learned from it) can often be gleaned without going through any of it. I can't tell you how much I have learned from the mistakes of others.
I agree completely.....if only more people would learn from past mistakes....and not just their own!!
It would depend totally upon the "issue." There are just certain things, no matter what you read, hear, taste, smell, etc you CANNOT understand, unless you have been there. A good example is what its like to be in a combat zone. You can tell people, show em movies, et al, however, unless they've been there, felt that overwhelming sense of fear, see their hands tremble, and voice shake, its IMPOSSIBLE for them to know what it is like.
Location: Currently I physically reside on the 3rd planet from the sun
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Originally Posted by FelixTheCat
This is a broad question. It could be about anything. What comes to mind is things like understanding what is is like to have really bad parents when your parents were ok. Or understanding what it is like to feel like a different gender than you were born, if you are not like that. Or to understand what it is like to go through a trauma like rape, if you have not.
I think you can certainly 'understand' issue and situations you have not personally experienced, however their is a gut-level or visceral knowing that transcends.
Think hunger.
I absolutely understand what it means to starve or feel hunger.
That said I have no idea what it means to face starvation or know hunger.
I think you can certainly 'understand' issue and situations you have not personally experienced, however their is a gut-level or visceral knowing that transcends.
Think hunger.
I absolutely understand what it means to starve or feel hunger.
That said I have no idea what it means to face starvation or know hunger.
Yeah, I have watched someone dying. I had seen it on TV (fake) before, but seeing in really life is 110% different, totally indescribable. But then, I haven't almost died before, so I don't know exactly what that is like, but being there in person helped to have more understanding.
There's reading about something. That gives theory.
There's watching something in person. That more real, but uninvolved.
Then there's being a part of it.
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