Food For Thought

Senses: Our Own or Our Past's

I love dark chocolate. With every fiber of my being, dark chocolate is one of the best privileges I have and, truly, it was an outrage when 99% ceased to be sold and I only found comfort in 90%. It was also an outrage when I gave some precious dark chocolate to my cousin and he unbelievably found it disgusting. While I had the pleasure of loving dark chocolate from an early age, this was one of the few times he tried it. Now, he tries it whenever possible to see if "his taste buds have changed yet." Maybe it was an acquired taste, enjoying it with my sister affected my attitude towards the experience, or the fact that I tried anything and everything when I was young changed my attitude towards new experiences. Some knowledge questions to ponder are:

How does a mentality towards the exploration of a sense affect experiences with given sense?

Can one change their inclination towards something by changing their mood in that moment?

How does emotions towards individuals sharing the experience affect the enjoyment of the experience?

Does one's past experiences completely dictate their enjoyment through a sense?  

A Modern Cave

A Modern Cave

        Social media limits and skews reality as humanity falls into a virtual world with no awareness of our own existence, mental and physical. On the left of the image above, social media - in all its forms - engulf the man's vision and attention albeit the engaging physical beauty within his reach. A wave of social media clouds his sight of the vibrant earth around him and corrodes his emotional and physical wisdom. As he chooses to mentally drown himself in worthless information, constant, useless, facets of human self-importance overtake all his time and efforts. Blindly following societal trends, he loses the ability to actively think and interact with his surroundings, similar to the individuals in the cave.

        Choosing ignorance of reality disintegrates the knowledge of his own character and mental state. Social media becomes his truth in a holistic sense; the pursuit of constant media feed becomes the only important aspect of his existence. Whilst idolising social media, he submits to the illusion of happiness in his consumerised content and fails to escape his dark surroundings. The only light he sees is from the screen of his device, continuously clouding his perspective of his role in the surrounding world community. He accepts the words of others as absolute truth instead of seeking more insight into the world around him. By not actively pursuing his own understanding of his surrounding, his knowledge and perspective is limited to the assumptions of his fellow companions.