In modern society, most of us have busy and fast-paced lives. A lot of work and travels of releasing stress are indispensable for people. However, in this life situation, the majority are losing ability of thinking independently, losing their sovereignty, and do not seeing the world through their hearts. All these things happen for people inevitably package their experiences. “Packaging” first mentions by Walker Percy (1916-1990) in the Lost of Creature; it means the appearance of matters, which prevents people from seeing through the essence of the problem. In my perspective, “packaging” has both positive and negative influence on people’s experience. However, Walker Percy uses instances to illustrate “packaging” impacts human being’s experience with negative influence.
Percy suggests that “most people in modern society play as consumers, which means getting the prepared experience (Percy 308).” Different from expert or planner who has sovereign rights, consumer faces two kind of educational packages. One serious “packaging” seduced consumers lose their sovereignty is symbolic package. Symbolic package is “formulated not by the knowledge itself but by the media” (Percy 306). To more specific, after several years, people can only remember the media like the circumstance or feeling instead of what they have learned at that time. Walker Percy proposes an example for specific illustration. The citizen who “squats on a potsherd to read a sonnet” (Percy 305) must has a deeper understanding than a Harvard sophomore, because the sophomore is not aware that he has fallen into the educational package. As Percy said “the new textbook, the type, the smell of the page——these media which are supposed to transmit the sonnet may only succeed in transmitting themselves” (Percy 306).
What makes human being influenced by “packaging” is giving the choices away, and obey blindly the leaders who telling him what to do. Percy uses the most typical instance to illustrate the negative influence of symbolic package to modern people, especially to students. Students have an ingrained superiority complex about education. This phenomenon becomes more serious as they have better educational environment. They follow professors’ teaching step by step, with enjoy their learning environment as usual, and do not realize this kind of learning is not proper. Instead of regarding those packages as “subordinates, they have looked upon them as consumers receiving an experience-package” (Percy306). Once students losing his sovereignty, they become wretches wrapped in packages. As losing sovereignty becoming more common for students, less and less people try to learn and discover the world independently, which result rarely innovative talents appear in modern society.
There is a relevant example which reminds me of people should not over dependent on experts or messages on media. I went to a famous flower show last year. One of them especially attracted me was a row of white roses bloomed serenely against the red wall. They pruned in same shape growing in pots. I asked local experts a lot about roses then searched some information about it for love. However, after two months later, when I saw wild roses in a mountain cottage, I could not even recognize them out. The rose bushes were budding, covered half of the wall. They were high, disorganized, with prick. I affirmatively denied the fact that they were same variety, because the surroundings were totally different.
“Packaging” baffled consumer really understand what it is they are seeing, if they only get the prepared experience. Therefore, always negate own idea but favor the experience from predecessors is an obvious phenomenon which marked loss of personal sovereignty. Both experts experience and information from media are the result of others carefully exploration. As Percy said “planners take special measures to tech and edify the consumer” (Percy 309). Hence, “after enjoy and experiences” (Percy 309), I only know the “packaging” of roses according to temporal circumstance. What the roses actually is never imprinted on my mind. People give up the sovereignty, with do not try to learn and research independently. Because never think to remove the things from packages, most people, include I do not know what they really are. I am lucky enough I look past the superficial finally.
“A shift of reality from concrete thing to theory” is another educational package happened in our daily life. Percy explains “as a consequence of the shift, the “specimen” is seen as less real than the theory of the specimen” (Percy 306). In The Lost of Creature, he takes Dogfish as a good example to illustrate consumer are willing to replace creatures with specimens. A student never sees the real dogfish. What he does is enter the zoology laboratory, dissect the specimen by following his laboratory manual and prescriptive experimental process. And he believes he knows perfectly what the dogfish is.
Laymen are seduced by science is also a reason that people are easily effect by “packaging”. Human being often refers to a specimen, as a unique creature in the world. Percy believes “it is the mistaking of an idea, a principle, an abstraction, for the real”. What’s more, people regard the experts’ presentation “as a lesson to be learned and never restoring access to creature as beings to be known” (Percy 307). Nowadays, majority are willing to use theory instead of seeing the true things, which is unhelpful for them. In work, this kind of people is unvalued. Even though they know theory and knowledge very well, they would still feel overwhelmed when facing a significant case. Gradually, it is difficult for theory-rich people to wrest control of educational package.
As a student and a consumer, I have a deep understanding of losing in an unclear motive. Person with expectations or "packaging" will not be able to fully accept and learn from any experience. The memory of going to Huangguoshu Waterfall is still fresh, which is a typical example about “packaging”. Local guide explained circumstances in detail on the way to the waterfall. Therefore, I carried great enthusiasm to see whether it was totally fit my image or even better than I thought. After compared the truth with my expectation, I began seeing the waterfall by camera, sharing my feeling in social software and enjoying the praise. Seeking theory fit makes people have no understanding of the real things. Hence, trying to package the waterfall is meaningless. As Walker Percy said, “the term of satisfaction is not the sovereign discovery of the thing, but the measuring up of the thing to the criterion of the preformed symbolic complex” (Percy 300). I did not find the natural beauty independently, and did not with an attitude of exploration actively. So I surrender my sovereignty unconsciously.
On no account should I deny the fact that “packaging” has some negative impact on personal experience. However, it still brings positive effects for personal experience in life. “Packaging” reduces the anxiety when people face the unfamiliar things. Majority will not take an adventure easily because unknown is full of insecurity and unworthy of exploring. Whereas, “packaging” is able to help people understand what they may face in advance. When people arrive in a strange-new city, it is an instinct he feel uncomfortable even fear. Culture shock may magnify anxiety when no one can share his worries. Hence, the experience from predecessors as a positive package helps him adapt to new surroundings. In my own case, before I came to the USA as the international students, I ask my sister a lot about U.S. courses and life. Although all the things are totally different from China, I still accept and adapt life in America quickly after I arrived here. The major reason is I have the “packaging” about the USA— I have understood something about the unfamiliar environment. Without the anxious about the unknown, I enjoy all the things that new life gives me. Hence, only if we see “packaging” in a new perspective, our horizon will not limited by it. On the contrary, “packaging” can promote our strength and conductive to growth.
The life of consumer is happy. In most of the time, a consumer who gets the prepared experience will spend less time on accepting new things than others. However, being a consumer is unfortunate. “Packaging” surrounds my experience, forces me to loss creative and independent thinking gradually. Educational packages inevitable bring consumer some bad experiences in the whole life. People are obsessed by those packages easily. It is only with the heart that we can see matters clearly, what is essential is invisible with our eyes. We need to discover the hidden knowledge implicit in the “packaging”, learn about their significance, and figure out how to remove our experiences from the “packaging”. Even though we can never take our lives completely out of all kinds of packages, it is still worth our effort to know that we are packaging them and do not puzzle by them.