Addicted to Experience? Is this really possible?

As I promised readers, here's another blog entry for today.

Last night reality TV was discussed and its effect on life experience and why it is popular. Tonight I want to look at the phenomenon of experience and explore briefly its consequences for being.

I want this entry to be more of an idea formulation than a full blown blog entry. Here's what I am seeing and let's discuss whether this happens or whether I'm just completely off my rocker (or both).

What I see in being right now is that people are being trained to be addicted to experience, people need to experience everything they possibly can in order to live life. This mentality occurs because of many different influences in society, either peer pressure or college institutions who encourage students to get out and do things. This influence is all well and good because people need to get out and experience the world sometimes because there are many things which people need to see. However, people can be told to experience too much, or to look for a particular brand of experience which is authentic.

Last night the discussion on reality TV talked about how people seek an escape from ordinary being by drawing themselves into something which is said and appears to be real being, but in fact is often fabricated or exaggerated being. This tendency to sensationalize experience occurs in another way. Reality TV tends to take many different experiences of being and flounders as many different emotions and feelings as possible into one experience. However, the opposite can also happen with different effects. Instead of pouring many different experiences into one experience, an experience can also be one which emphasizes one particular aspect of experience repeatedly (either a feeling or a ritual phrase.)

Ritual can be used to do this (either with or without knowledge that this is happening) through its use of repetition in prayers and the guidance of the worship leader. For example, if one wants to spread an idea of Jesus having mercy then one possible method of spreading that message is to have a litany which repeats "Jesus have mercy". The litany with its use of repetition helps the phrase get stuck in people's heads. If the phrase gets stuck in someone's head, then people in their minds repeat the same phrase, and in this particular phrase it is one of comfort.

To get feelings stuck in people's minds which can lead to a desire for a particular experience, one has to see a dramatic example of a particular feeling. This can either be an authentic response to an action, which people desire to emulate because there is an extreme feeling (and someone having or seeming to have a deep experience.) This experience and concern happens particularly within charismatic religious movements of the Holy Spirit. The encounter with the Holy Spirit is a deep reality. In response to that reality, some people have deep experiences to this transcendental reality. People desire to have this experience because it is a feeling of encounter with the divine. This desire for a particular feeling is also encouraged by those who lead prayer services through various incantations and extemporaneous prayers to the Spirit.

This experience in itself is not a bad thing. Deep prayer experiences are times of peace and calmness. However, the experience of God is greater than an experience of this particular feeling of the Spirit. The experience of God is a journey which takes place through joys and sorrows, happiness and pain. One particular feeling is not an exclusive experience of God. God can show His presence in a variety of feelings and many a way. Without this knowledge of the journey, people can feel a lack of God if they do not experience this particular high. This is dangerous because it becomes easy for people to fall away from God because of the lack of this particular experience.

Aristocrates