Common Sense Living

"Axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses: We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the Author."

-  John Keats

Life is a journey full of experiences. Experiences are the source of Common Sense.

There is subsequent amount of established facts and following them could lead to a happy ending. Even after this, we are so wholehearted to experience the things on our own. We want to test the phenomenon before accepting it because the subconscious does not allow conscious to accept the things which do not stand there until the subconscious is not capable enough to relate them with principles, values, key life issues and building blocks of life.

We take in information through our senses, yet we ultimately learn by doing. First, we watch and listen to others. This sparks our interest and generates our motivation to discover by self. Then we try doing things on our own. We take an action, see the consequences of that action, and choose either to continue or discontinue or to take a new and different action.

Without experience, we are just passive participants and passive participation doesn't stimulate our senses to integrate our lessons into existing plot.

You know what to do with a button of your TV remote without even thinking about it. Of course this button is what turns the volume up but in case when you are in with a new TV set, you check the same button for same function. You want to retest your past experience with same but new object for whether it works even here or not. You want to reconfirm and reassure yourself. It's ONLY YOUR EXPERIENCE, your personal experience that can set your mind at rest and restore your common sense.

"We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

-  T.S. Eliot

Experience gives Common Sense that allows us to reflect on new experience from different perspectives. From these experiences, we engage in Common

Sense; create generalizations that integrate our observations into sound speculation. Finally, we use these generalizations as guides to further action. But we experience as it allows us to test what we learn in new and more complex situations. The result is another concrete experience, but this time at a more personal level and is fathomed. If the experience is sufficiently strong, it can call our current values into question.

Reassuring the button function is undeniably an action which has negligible cost - Cost - Yes, experiencing incurs a cost- insignificant to unreasonable, inheriting other features of cost as well.

Cost of experiencing is the price paid in terms of time, energy, money sometimes intrinsic values to acquire/ renew/ replace an experience. With every experience, associated is the benefit. The benefit of experience is the outcome in the form of learning that enhances your Common Sense. If you taste a new cookery because your friend says it tastes good; and you experience some proscribed drug, what the difference is? What the difference is in cost of experience? What's on stake in both the cases and upto what degree? What are the benefits in them? What value addition the experience is going to make? 

Are you in dark about this cost/ benefit of the experience? If so, you must turn yourself knowledgeable enough to have a virtual dashboard on your forehead. A dashboard comprising of panels of your experiences and the experiences of others. Your dashboard can give incomplete reading; you have to enrich it continuously to make yourself more leveled to the Common Sense. You need to learn more. And this Common Sense helps you to realize the affordability of the experience. And the affordability is the coordinate of your will to experience.

I remember, till I was 20, I was able to climb top floor of my house in 12 seconds. A long time has passed. I am not sure whether its still 12 or more or less. I may experience and restore the correct information to my dashboard. I had been unbeatable arguer but I can't afford to experience the status again.

You can't experience every time because you can go upto a reasonable and justifiable cost but you can experience when it is affordable. When it is affordable, you must do it. It is quite likely that the experience is affordable for you but unaffordable for someone. Your inquisitiveness can play their innings as well because it's your experience but the experience of others as well.