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Mar. 9th, 2011
Discerning distinct experiences
Mar. 9th, 2011 10:44 amIt's really interesting to me how one's ability to discern between different experiences is developed. You go through life experiencing some diverse set of things as one homogenous thing, until something or other happens and you realize you're looking at a heterogenous set of experiences.
Take, for example, my exercise induced asthma. Up until a few years ago, every time I tried exercising, after a while I would experience a collection of sensations. Fatigue, shortness of breath, wheezing, headache, etc. I referred to it as "being exhausted" and that was it. It was one homogenous experience.
However, when I received my inhaler this past summer, I discovered that I was actually experiencing two different experiences. Actually several experiences. One experience was muscle fatigue, which is where a particular muscle starts getting harder and harder to move. Another experience was general fatigue, where my body is out of energy and needs food, water, and rest before continuing. And still another experience was asthma attacks, where I was out of breath, wheezing, etc.
Nowadays, I'm starting to be able to tell the difference between these various things. On the way to work today, I started feeling the familiar burning in my lungs coupled with short, shallow breaths, lung pain, and wheezing, and I knew that I was starting to have an asthma attack. Years ago, I would have assumed that this was just exhaustion, and the fact that it came on so soon after starting out meant that I was really out of shape. I would have beaten myself up for not working harder on losing weight and getting in shape, and then pushed on in pain, stopping every few feet to gasp for breath and wait for oxygen to return.
Nowadays, I know what's going on. I stopped, whipped out my inhaler, took a few shots, and waited. After a while, I could feel my throat relaxing and air flowing normally. Once I was taking deep breaths again, I hopped back on and rode off. No other feelings for the rest of the 10 mile ride.
This is a completely different experience from what happened the other day when I did 20 miles on my bike to go to a friend's house, and found my body shaking with exhaustion towards the end. I wasn't wheezing or having trouble breathing. My body was simply out of energy. I needed to collapse on a couch and rest for a while.
And both of those are completely different from a time early when I was hiking where I felt my leg muscles become harder to move despite the rest of me feeling fine. I wasn't out of breath or tired, really. I just couldn't really push my leg muscles any more.
I was unable to discern these experiences from one another until I could experience them separately and name them as distinct experiences. Yet I've been experiencing all of them all my life.
It's just something interesting to think about. What experiences have you had that are like this? Where you've discovered that experiences in your 'verse are actually more distinct than you realized previously?
Take, for example, my exercise induced asthma. Up until a few years ago, every time I tried exercising, after a while I would experience a collection of sensations. Fatigue, shortness of breath, wheezing, headache, etc. I referred to it as "being exhausted" and that was it. It was one homogenous experience.
However, when I received my inhaler this past summer, I discovered that I was actually experiencing two different experiences. Actually several experiences. One experience was muscle fatigue, which is where a particular muscle starts getting harder and harder to move. Another experience was general fatigue, where my body is out of energy and needs food, water, and rest before continuing. And still another experience was asthma attacks, where I was out of breath, wheezing, etc.
Nowadays, I'm starting to be able to tell the difference between these various things. On the way to work today, I started feeling the familiar burning in my lungs coupled with short, shallow breaths, lung pain, and wheezing, and I knew that I was starting to have an asthma attack. Years ago, I would have assumed that this was just exhaustion, and the fact that it came on so soon after starting out meant that I was really out of shape. I would have beaten myself up for not working harder on losing weight and getting in shape, and then pushed on in pain, stopping every few feet to gasp for breath and wait for oxygen to return.
Nowadays, I know what's going on. I stopped, whipped out my inhaler, took a few shots, and waited. After a while, I could feel my throat relaxing and air flowing normally. Once I was taking deep breaths again, I hopped back on and rode off. No other feelings for the rest of the 10 mile ride.
This is a completely different experience from what happened the other day when I did 20 miles on my bike to go to a friend's house, and found my body shaking with exhaustion towards the end. I wasn't wheezing or having trouble breathing. My body was simply out of energy. I needed to collapse on a couch and rest for a while.
And both of those are completely different from a time early when I was hiking where I felt my leg muscles become harder to move despite the rest of me feeling fine. I wasn't out of breath or tired, really. I just couldn't really push my leg muscles any more.
I was unable to discern these experiences from one another until I could experience them separately and name them as distinct experiences. Yet I've been experiencing all of them all my life.
It's just something interesting to think about. What experiences have you had that are like this? Where you've discovered that experiences in your 'verse are actually more distinct than you realized previously?