Taylor DeLaMare Humanities 1/7/14 Final Writing Project Experience Experience is the most important part of life, and

the heart of this unit because everything that any author said always related back to this: the idea that one needs to have untainted experience as opposed to comparisons and vicarious living. This is what we are confronted by, not the things class, any hierarchy, of quality or quantity, but the thing itself, and its relevance to ourselves who are the experience of it, (1). Olson is saying that what matters about objects is not how they stand in comparison with other things; its how we view them and interact with them. The unit is all about reality and finding what really matters. OIsons ideas are integral to all other ideas shared in this unit, even those by Thoreau and Abbey. Thoreaus main focal point in his observations was that one needs to wade through all the clutter found in the river of human existence to reach the stony bottom that is a metaphor for the joys in life: experience and simplicity. Abbeys idea of culture vs. civilization reflects Olsons ideas as well, seeing as Abbey argues against big machinery and mass-production with culture and argues for individuality and creativity with civilization. Olson has the most basic view of the issues, (what life is truly about and how it should be lived), and his is arguably the best.

There is many ways that this idea relates to modern society as a whole, like in previews for movies. There are always words being used to describe the movie, and to fit it into different pre-conceived notions of what it should or shouldnt be, calling it this generations *insert popular, decades-old movie here*, and other comparative names. These comparisons get in the way of experiencing the movie itself because everyone already has an idea of what it is before they see it. Olson argued against just this; the idea that people can just place a piece of art into a category and say, its not as good as this, but its better than that, drove Olson crazy because he knew what was important. Olson knew that experiencing things is much better than hearing about them or viewing them from a critical, cynical, biased lens. This is just one of the many ways that Olsons theories on experience relate to the real and modern world. OIsons theory is also very personal. In my own life, there has been many a time when I have planned to spend time with people, and we start reminiscing on previous experiences together, and we always end up comparing what were doing in the present to what weve done in the past. We sometimes cant live in the moment and experience what goes on around us because we get caught up trying to relive past adventures. We talk about how much fun we had on that one day, and how were not having as much fun the current day. Comparisons and expectations ruin the spontaneity of experience. This and many other things happen on a near-daily basis because of comparison.