Wednesday, November 16, 2011

I thought curiosity was a good thing...

Staring is a complex biological function that our brain does to figure out situations and visions we are curious about. I can think of an endless amount of times I have starred at something to figure it out and to process it, but the most recent and effective example is, this Sunday I was in the hospital and in the bed across from me there was a woman of the older population who had fallen and torn a part of her lip off, and I mean TORN. So I snuck my stare through an opening in the curtain between us and watched the ER doctor attempt to put her back together. I could not take my eyes off it. My friend who had accompanied me to the hospital started laughing and asked what I was looking at because I was in a deep stare and my jaw was open and about to hit the floor. I laughed back and pointed out the event on which my eyes were locked. My friend then engaged in the same stare I was in. I honestly was not staring to be rude, I was just trying to figure out what happened and if her lip was going to be fully repaired. By the end of her hospital stay she had been sown up, but she still looked like she had a slightly clef pallet, not to mention other parts of her face were bruised and scraped as well. I was happy to be hidden in my own room so nobody else could see me staring, but I couldn’t stop looking and it was exciting trying to figure out what had happen. Something that I think was particularly interesting is if my mom was at the hospital with me, chances are she would tell me to stop staring and I would look down, but since my friend is not an authority figure she just asked me what I was staring at and she joined me. I wonder how much age and roles of people in your life effects situations in which people stare.

I was staring to solve a mystery. I probably had these feelings “because we both crave and dread unpredictable sights, staring encounters are fraught with anxious contradiction” (19). As I said before, I was not intending on being rude, I just wanted to figure out what was going on because “Curiosity is the itch to know; it shifts desire of the eye to desire of the mind” (47). I feel like a core theme of Garland-Thomson’s work thus far is built on the idea in which the behavior of staring evokes a plethora of contradicting feelings and behaviors. We want to look at something because we are curious, and being curious can help you learn, but staring is bad. So how can we learn and discover the mysteries of our sight if we cannot even look at what we are trying to figure out. It does not make sense. It’s as if we are trying to solve a math problem. Picture this: You have a test in front of you and written on it you have this extraordinary Calculus 4 problem that you must solve to pass the class. I don’t know about all you math whizzes out there but I would have to stare at the problem a LONG time to even begin to start figuring it out. Imagine if on that test you were just shown the problem briefly and then had to work it out in your head. It would be frustrating and most likely, near impossible to complete. If we are staring at something whether it’s a car accident or a disabled person, we are doing it to figure out the math problem. The way we do that is by staring to work it out. Is curiosity so bad because ignorance is bliss? Are some things just not our business and are there things our brains just shouldn’t work out? Why is “wanting to know more than what is good for you” (63) so bad?

2 comments:

  1. I so understand your points. I am a visual learner as well as a photographer and need to look at things and read them and analyze them in order for my brain to fully comprehend and assess the situation. And I think that this is why many people stare too, their intentions are not malicious, they are simply curious about the world around us...if we weren’t, we wouldn’t notice anything in our lives and life would be extraordinarily boring.

    I think some things aren’t our business, and no matter how much we want to know and no matter how curious we are about things, I think this is a main reason we aren’t supposed to stare. It’s like eavesdropping in on a private conversation. We can’t help hearing, and wanting to know what is going on, but it would be so rude to ask and strange that you would publicly care. So I think that even though we stare at times to absorb our environment, I think there are things around us that we are just not meant to absorb...especially if it has to do with the private life of someone.

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  2. Paige, I agree with you that sometimes things aren't our business, and your comparison to eavesdropping was very astute. However I'd like to add that sometimes issues of compassion come into the situation that complicate matters. In general one could say that listening to other peoples conversations is rude and inappropriate but what if you overhead a conversation that disturbed you, one that might imply that someone you know is in danger. For example, you hear your friend and her boyfriend arguing and he threatens violence. I think it is different is staring or eavesdropping is done with the intent only to entertain or amuse someone. But if someone is not meaning to be rude, as Dayna explicitly said she was not, and has motives that are linked to trying to comprehend situations it staring and eavesdropping can be acceptable.

    In Dayna's situation in the hospital, feelings of empathy and genuine human concern for the woman lying there with her lip torn off might have, even subconsciously, spurred the stare. just by reading your description Dayna I found myself immensely curious as to her outcome and also to how this injury happened. Possibly there is even a feeling of gaining knowledge out of the situation and staring process in order of self-protection. What I mean by this is that if one can figure out how this lady managed to have her lip torn off I would know what types of situations to avoid. A extreme example of this would be with the woman who a few years ago got was attacked by a chimpanzee and had her face ripped off. I now know that chimpanzees are dangerous and I should not own one or be around them. Sure I could have gotten this warning by reading some information on chimps but clearly the visual of seeing what this chimp was able to do to this woman has solidified in my brain that chimpanzees are dangerous and can cause serious physical harm to humans.

    (This woman I mentioned who was attacked has been very public about her experiences and has gotten much attention because she was the first individual to have complete reconstructive face surgery. I think her story as a whole is very relevant to the "Staring: How We Look" book for many different reasons that I don't have time to explain now in this comment.)

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