From The Social Construction of Reality, By Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckman
"Everyday life presents itself as a reality interpreted by men and subjectively meaningful to them as a coherent word...It is a world that originates in their thoughts and actions, and is maintained as real by there." (pp. 19-20)
"Consciousness is always intentional; it always intends or is directed toward objects...This is so regardless of whether the object of consciousness is experienced as belonging to an external physical world or apprehended as an element of an inward subjective reality. Whether I (the first person singular, here as in the following, standing for ordinary self-conscious in everyday life) am viewing the panorama of New York City or whether I become conscious of an inner anxiety, the processes of consciousness involved are intentional in both instanced...Different objects present themselves to consciousness as constituents of different spheres of reality...I am conscious of the world as consisting of multiple realities...Among the multiple realities there is one that presents itself as the reality par excellence. This is the reality of every day life." (pp. 20-21)
"I apprehend the reality of everyday life as an ordered reality. Its phenomena are prearranged in patterns that seem to be independent of my apprehension of them and that impose themselves on the latter." (pp. 21)
Oh the things I must read for sociology...I'm supposed to write about this. What was I supposed to say again? Let me look. "How is the reality of everyday life constructed according to Berger and Luckman?" Well, despite the fact that I read the entire piece, this stuff above is about the only stuff that I could pick up. Hmmm...not very encouraging. I think a lot of what they believe is said right in these first pages...but I really don't know because searching further would probably confuse me even more. Don't you just hate it when that happens? When you have something that you're supposed to do and you're supposed to analyze and you're supposed to be able to figure it out...but you just aren't sure that you can do it? In some cases, you even KNOW that you can't do it. If that's a part of everyday life, that certain problems are simply too overwhelming for certain individuals, then perhaps Berger and Luckman would tell me that it's all part of the pattern of my consciousness. That in my perception of the fact that this paper is too overwhelming for me, I am following the prearranged path decided upon not by any outside forces, but by my consciousness. Now perhaps I have stopped reading this piece too early, but if the consciousness is solely in charge of the reality of my everyday life, what does any of that have to do with sociology? This sounds like more of a psychological piece than anything else. Hmmm...let's try some more.
"The reality of everyday life is organized around the 'here' of my body and the 'now' of my present. This 'here and now' is the focus of my attention to the reality of everyday life...The reality of everyday life is not, however, exhausted by these immediate presences, but embraces phenomena that are not present 'here and now.' This means that I experience everyday life in terms of differing degrees of closeness and remoteness, both spatially and temporally." (pp. 22)
"The reality of everyday life further presents itself to me as an intersubjective world, a world that I share with others. This intersubjectivity sharply differentiates everyday life from other realities of which I am conscious." (pp. 23)
So, CLEARLY, things are much better now. Everyday life is constructed of consciousness and more specifically the here and now of that consciousness. We are experiencing everyday life now, and our consciousness tells us that. It also tells us that certain portions of this reality are defined by me in varying degrees through spatial and temporal methods. Furthermore, I know that everyone else in this everyday reality knows about this everyday reality because they're in it. I experience my everyday life with others, therefore THEIR conscious mind must be telling them that the reality we experience together is a part of their everyday reality as well as it is a part of mine. IT BOGGLES THE MIND!
"Everyday life is, above all, life with and by means of the language I share with my fellowmen. An understanding of language is thus essential for any understanding of the reality of everyday life." (pp. 37)
This duo then continues on to say that language can be readily detached from a face-to-face situation. We "can shout in the dark or across a great distance, speak on the telephone or via the radio, or convey linguistic signification by means of writing." So, if language is essential for understanding the reality of everyday life, how do we acquire language in this sense? If the consciousness is the force in our minds that is ALWAYS at work, even before we can speak and think in words, how does the consciousness develop the ability to think? At what point does the consciousness tell the consciousness to think in words. Is there a point where we don't have consciousness and we must acquire it before we are able to use our consciousness to guide our everyday lives? Or is it simply that we are not aware of our consciousness until we are familiar with language? So many questions, and only ten minutes time to write anything about this.
Monday, September 08, 2003 A delicious day of work
5:47 PM
I woke up at 5:37 this morning. My alarm had been set for 5:45. I turned it off so I wouldn't wake up Jessie. I got into the shower. I cleansed myself and got out. I got dressed. I ate a bowl of cereal. I brushed my teeth. My clock said it was 6:03. I picked up my packed shoulder bag and headed out the door to my car. My windows needed to be defogged. I'd leave the lot by 6:15.
Initially, I didn't quite remember where my car was, and as it was dark, this made this more difficult. But I did eventually remember despite the grogginess that accompanied my early rising. I started my defogger and waited patiently until 6:15, when I finally pulled out of my spot. I drove for an hour and 21 minutes. There were many times I was near sleeping. In fact, when I arrived at my destination, White Cloud High School, I tried to doze for about 25 minutes, as I was early for my appointment. To no avail, I could not nap. I ended up going inside 10 minutes early.
"Hi. My name is Liz McKee and I'm here from Jostens to meet with Janis Barnhadt and Laura Nadin."
I was escorted to the lab. Only the teachers computer had a CD-Rom drive. I had to install the software on the network, and then run a network install on each individual station. In order to install the fonts specialized for this program, I had to actually use another program called Adobe TypeManager. None of the computers had this on there, and since only one of them had a CD drive, I was forced to figure out how to put this information on the network so that I could install this program on each individual workstation. This was not part of the job description. The lack of TypeManager was a total surprise.
After finally getting the fonts installed on each computer, I tested some things only to find that one of the files was corrupt. It closes the program every time you choose a specific font. Great and wonderful. In the end, the entire set-up, which consisted of only 10 computers, took my two hours. The technician had to continually sign me back in due to multiple restarts.
After this ordeal, I was no longer falling asleep behind the wheel. I was wide awake and ready to take on anything else this day had for me. Overall, I'd say that this day has been the most productive one since I have arrived at Grand Valley.