This probably doesn't make any sense.

I've been wondering for a while how much of experience is focusing on the experience itself. We started our Digital Storytelling class tonight discussing what should remain the same and what should change as far as the number and structures of weekly assignments go. The liberty to express these thoughts comes from the first-time experimental nature of this class. Sure, Jim Groom scheduled one class period where we all sat and deliberately discussed the nature of our class, but I feel like 90% of the experience of this class has truly been discussing it--through blogs, through questions, etc. My freshman seminar was much the same in this regard.

So then I think about Sadie taking pictures all the time and when I asked her, "How much of living an experience for you is documenting the experience?"--to which she responded, "A lot."

And then I look at myself and a lot of frustrated Christian friends who say things along the lines of, "We need to stop talking about serving God and actually SERVE God."

Of course, this opens a floodgate: "What do you define as an experience?" All I'm saying is... there's a lot of saying. This blog post is me writing about the experience of experience. That makes it difficult for me to get to my point. But I'll get there... maybe.

Something's gotta be said about those implied scenes between scenes in TV shows, movies, and books. We can't exactly cut those out of our own lives, so what of them? Are they insignificant for our own life stories? I'm sure I'd get a resounding "no" in response to such a question. Truth is, the all-encompassing story of your life is not the ideal. You spent too much time blaming that person or situation for something that was wrong instead of being that transition out of the wrong. Perhaps those are scenes you'd like to cut off the reel, but you know still that they are significant. You are that person who says, "I really don't regret anything, because anything brought me to everything I am and know today."

That makes anything part of experience, and that makes talking about and documenting and mulling over experience worthwhile. Some could argue it's like pushing the pause button and living a life detached from "real life." But maybe it really is just those scenes between scenes. You can't be removed from yourself.

But you can appeal to Something that is much removed from who you are and what you were born into. For me, this is the significance of feeling like I'm going outside of myself--because it makes me vulnerable to the Holy Spirit I have dwelling within me. There's not often enough room under my "heart bed" to shove all the crap so that I can open up that space for God to really dwell in me and use me as a vessel for His purposes. It gets so dark in this here body. Cluttered and lonely.

So I have to talk about that experience. I have to take a part of my life to talk about a part of my life. I'm sorry if I've lost you in all my crazy speak, but I think the point I'm finally coming to is that my life is not wasted. Despite the ubiquity of my sins, I should never be defeated by them. Though I must take the time to right some wrongs or even figure out what is right, and though that time may be relatively long, it's not wasted. And that's where you gotta be and what you gotta know to press on. That's how you stop complaining and start doing. It's in the experience of the experience of the experience just as much as it's in the original experience.

Ouch, my head. My apologies for your head, too, if you made it here and followed any of that.

Back to the experience itself again. Hello, Abstract Algebra.