Bewilderment in my opinion means complete and utter
confusion and the inability to understand something. I think that when you are bewildered
we cannot grasp what is happening before us, like how quantum physics is to me.
We need both uncertainty and certainty in our lives to function and cope with
our lives. Certainty is necessary in our lives, because it keeps some things in
our lives solid. I think that certainty helps people deal with the uncertainty.
People hold on to what they know for sure to differentiate what’s real and what’s
not. Howe says, “In your cynical movements you often have to separate from
situations,” Certainty is important because you are able to tell the difference
between what is real and what is not real. Uncertainty is necessary in our
lives, because it keeps us wondering. We try to figure out what that uncertain
thing is. For example, God, nobody knows if he is real or not, but people still
choose to believe in the uncertain figure. While nobody knows if God is real or
not he is able to control people. In “Bewilderment” it says “How you love
another person might be a reflection of your relationship to God or the world
itself,” I think that many people fear the unknown and uncertain, so they
believe in something to help them cope with the uncertain. We need both
certainty and uncertainty in our lives because it gives us balance in our
lives. Certainty and uncertainty helps us realize not just what is real and not
real, but also the unknowns in our lives.
In my own words, bewilderment means to be lost or confused with a situation. I feel like we should have certainty in some aspects of our life, like whenever one communicates because that makes it easier to get ideas from one place to another. For example, in Bewilderment Fanny Howe says “People fear repeating one word in the same sentence.” That causes scholars to try and make new words to avoid confusion. However, some people also need bewilderment in their life for the sake of religion, For example, there are those who question if God really does exist but bewilderment helps them to regain their faith in whatever religion that they practice. In addition, j Muslim say prayer “Lord increase my bewilderment” to help them not have a wandering eye because they have strayed away from the path of God.
ReplyDeleteBewilderment to me is something that has meaning but is not clear. I feel as if certainty is important in life. I personally lack certainty in a day to day basis but it is something we gain as we grow older. Certainty in life is a hard concept. We want to live day by day but we want to have an amazing outcome. Certainty is important, but many of us lack this trait and I do not see any shame or harm in that. I feel as if certainty comes with life, as well as mistakes, decisions, and learning what exactly you want. College is an important time to figure out certainty in our lives. With this being said certainty can be bewildered due to the many ups and downs in life. It is in fact important to b certain for a lot of things, but without making mistakes a lot would never become clear to you.
ReplyDeleteBewilderment to me is the feeling of complete and utter wonder as well as not knowing what the answer to the question is. In my view it is nothing to do with confusion at all, but, it can be confused with confusion very easily. When Fanny Howe talks about Midas and how he turned everything to gold she brought up the point of “how could he survive on gold nuggets for supper?” or when she stated “Who would he love?” to me this is being in a state of bewilderment, not knowing the exact answer, but also not being confused about the question at hand. This also can be seen in the examples of gods, no one knows if there is truly a higher force out there that looks down upon us, though no one can prove definitively that there is not a higher force. To myself these examples are the best way to look at bewilderment, not completely sure but also not in utter confusion.
ReplyDeleteI agree bewilderment is the state in which nothing makes since and someone is in a great deal of confusion. In this essay the author explores how different things explain bewilderment and how they cause the feeling. For example, as great as language is it deeply fails to deal with our since of bewilderment, while it may help answer some questions it also gives us the ability to ask even more questions. The essay also goes on to point out the many flaws with our language such as the inability to explain something that is happing in real time efficiently. There are many different examples in this essay but this is just one way that the world we live in creates confusion and it is a perfect example of something that will, “cause to lose ones since of where one is”, which is the dictionary definition of bewilderment.
ReplyDeleteIn Fanny Howe’s essay “Bewilderment” she gives many different definitions of what the word bewilderment means to her. I think all of her definitions are great but to me bewilderment is simply acknowledging the unknown and accepting that it is unknown. This is to say that you do not know something and to be okay with that fact. It can almost be like losing oneself in an alternate reality for a moment where anything is possible in the mind. That is why I think bewilderment is necessary to our lives. It allows us to dream without boundaries. It does not matter if it is fake or reality because bewilderment requires no reasoning.This gives the individual a sense of freeness that is hard to find in most other things. However, I also think certainty is necessary because that is what makes up our reality and helps keep our sanity. If nothing was really certain then there would always be questioning whether or not anything could actually be real.
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