re: previous post

it was an assessment, and this is the associated exegesis aka what it's all about

My personal essay was an attempt at cutting up. It cut me up to do it. Six pages and five texts were scanned for appropriate words to form coherent sentences. I denied myself cheating. I wanted to cheat. I wanted to change a word so it was no longer a plural, to change its tense. But to alter would be to alter the meaning of the whole. This cut up was written with direction, I at least attempted to create sense from words that were intended to mean something else and for it to feel and sound good simultaneously. I struggled and perhaps at time failed, but see this as an important facet to the essay because when being in time things aren’t always as easy as you wish.

If the essay were to be given a question title, it would be “Describe and analyse what sense is and why it is so central to being and embodiment?”. I used sense to describe sense; I created a sense experience to give sense meaning. The lack of sense that shone through at times highlights that sense itself defies meaning, or a meaning created through words. I find myself unable to limit myself using the word sense for there is only one word which means it but a lot of stuff and things which are it.

Being to me is experiencing, which is where phenomenology is brought in. In my experiences I experience and knowledge is generated (knowingly or unknowingly) which then shapes my meaning making. I therefore used a daily routine to tease out the essay, for I know showering, I know putting on clothes, I know listening to music and I know seeing trees.

The commentary- as marked by italics was necessary. While the cut up was in fact an exercise in being in writing, in being in time, in being in sense, it would make little sense itself. The commentary also provided me with a little relief, I could use creative freedom, I was not limited by my word choice, I could at least attempt to explain some of the choices I had made.

It seems that now, whatever meaning has come from the sentence structures themselves are almost irrelevant, but it is more important how the essay makes one feel upon reading it. For me, I feel excited that some words do sit so wonderfully next to each other and that some sounds make me a little giddy. For others, they may disagree, or hate it but that is influenced by their life experiences and whether they enjoy the sight and sound of words as much as I do.

My personal essay is the experience, is the sensory stimuli and therefore is what it’s trying to describe. Sense and making sense of sense is most central to being and being in time and being in my body.