experience, for experiences' sake..

I read an interesting short-essay by Paula in which she talks about the popular/or rather unpopular trends in how experience, or "experience" is defined. Experience is such a self-defined word - different for just about everyone depending on what it is you experience, what you've experienced before (or rather, who you've experienced before). In fact, the more you think about it, the definition becomes extremely complicated and convoluted. Can of worms, anyone?

In even small terms, an experience is a sensation, so every sense or sensibility you possess is in essence an experience. Every smell, every taste, every action, word, thought or idea. Even physically being somewhere is an experience in some way. It is every second of every minute, of every waking day we have. It's life.

Here are a few ideas I have on experience:

1. The more "experienced" you think you are, is rather the opposite. If you've had a lot of experiences, or a broad variety of experiences, then every experience you have will probably give you LESS experience, due to your experienced-ness (if that makes sense). Is it true that the curve for rating experiences against number of experiences begins rather high then decreases with the number of experiences we have? (don't ask me what the name of the curve is..) Once you've experienced something, experiencing it again even in a different context just doesn't cut it as well the first time. The satisfaction is still there but it isn't always as good. Remember your first A at school? Or your first kiss? Or your first purchase with your first real paycheck?

2. The world of work "experiences" - Depending on what job you apply for, they'll be looking at how experienced you are. In reality, what job you want may require experiences that suggest you to be competent enough to do the job adequately. What about travelling around the world? Or bartending? Or working as a postman? Those are some of my experiences... does that mean I don't have relevant experience to be a teacher? I can honestly say that as a postman I learnt enormous attention to detail sorting hundreds and thousands of letters with unique post codes. Bartending I learnt multi-tasking and communication skills (ever tried to serve 40 customers at the same time during Rugby World Cup? I don't recommend it). In fact, previous to actually teaching the only experience we had was sitting at the back of a classroom taking notes because we weren't allowed to interact with the kids (we didn't have the necessary experience for that).

3. I'm fascinated with people with limited experiences.. it sounds terribly cruel but there's nothing as enjoyable as creating a new experience for someone. Do you remember a vivid first experience? That mix of surprise, amazement even at saying to yourself "wow.. I've never done something like this before". The initial hesitation, the almost electric atmosphere, feeling your pulse steadily increase, a slight palpatation. That rush of adrenalin, endorphines, the excitement of it all.

I recall a "first experience" I had, the first time I was up on the New York Empire State Building. I remembered "Sleepless in Seattle", that scene at the end where Jonah is waiting on the top of the Empire State Building for his hopeful mother-to-be in Meg Ryan, a lady he's never met but written to about her dad who's heartbroken at losing his wife to cancer.

So with all these references to movies and things, I'm riding the elevator to the observation deck. The first thing that hits you is the rush of wind. It's extremely windy there (or perhaps it was the day we went). At first I didn't go near the edge (I have a fear of heights), so I stayed nearish the edge, looking out at New York, to Brooklyn, at the Twin Towers, and just taking it all in. It was incredible, that moment of "wow.. this is soo cool", that feeling of stepping outside of your body and coming to the realisation that you're experiencing something completely unique. With so many references to New York, The Empire State Building, it's so hard to capture that "moment of experiential conception".

So in short, life is all an experience, and who are we to judge other people's experiences? We've all had extremely unique experiences, and yet in our own way we're all "experienced", and no one - not some prospective employer who lets you down with a rejection letter in the post, nor any higher authority who scoffs when you recount one of your personal experiences, nor any date who smiles sympathetically at you when you relay that "I just haven't had much luck with love.." can belittle what you've experienced. But keep on experiencing, it only gets richer with age.