understanding others around us

Chris Campbell October 9, 2008
D-4
Understanding Others Around US

For the past couple of weeks we have been trying to get a general understanding of what is meaning and is our own lives meaningful to us and or others. After going through this process we tired to figure out exactly how others felt about this same situation and see what their thoughts were. First we started out just asking random individuals on the street two questions, what is wisdom? And what are the most meaningful things in their lives? Several people gave regular standard answers, while others gave insightful definitions and meaningful aspects of their lives. Many people didn’t want to participate; several avoided the entire question which was kind of interesting as well.

When approaching individuals about is there lives meaningful and what are the most meaningful things in your life, many gave standard responses while others gave insightful responses. When I asked an elderly man sitting on a park bench what are the most meaningful things in your life he told me “Women, Wine and Song.” At first I wasn’t to sure what exactly he meant, but when we did research on that, he actually had just told as a title of a song. So I looked at that statement as if that might be one of his most remember able song or he was just clowning us. When I asked another individual handing out newspapers what is the most meaningful thing in you life he told me “Art”. I then ask why, he says “because I’m an artist and I love to draw.” This changed my whole perspective about the man because I thought he was and ordinary man but as he describe his art he changed the way I felt towards him.

People often said "Family" was one of the most meaningful things in their life. When I asked one lady walkin down the street on a scale of 1 - 10 how meaningful is her family she said "6", when i asked why 8 she said jokingly "sometimes they can be a pain". I thought that was a general answer of why anyone would say their family is meaningful. When i asked this homeless looking guy the same question he asked me " to me or to him" I replied "to you" and then he says a "10". this guy didn't fully explain why he felt this way, but from the look on his face i could tell he was serious.