First Class Reflection
Our first Designing Other World’s class!!
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited about taking this course and now even more so after reading the syllabus. I’m glad that it’s a text-heavy class and will be happy to participate in discussions.
Doing the three exercises in class, I thought I learnt about myself differently as we progressed through each exercise/scenario. The first assignment should have been more straightforward, almost like filling out a biodata form or being interviewed about yourself. It should have come easily, but there were some places where I paused. Class is something that as a society we run away from talking about but we each play a strong role in determining and reproducing its effect on our society. I paused. Living in different countries, having these various contexts in my head I wasn’t able to see myself clearly, objectively. How was I viewed by others? What did what I have how I have it and how I look affect my class and all these other groups. A lot of this first-class emphasized how much of us is based on how we think we are projected in the minds of others.
Another part of this first assignment that I paused on was party affiliation. I’ve often struggled with the labels associated with political groups and then where I stand within each policy, belief, etc I wondered in that section when I paused, what is the onus of this question, what is it asking. Where do you stand? That’s what I get from it. This then makes me think, is a certain label enough to shed light on what values, beliefs and ethics I’d want to uphold. I don’t think it does and maybe that’s why I paused. These questions also highlight what’s thought of as important to know about someone, an overview. It’s interesting how weight, disability, race, sexuality and are important markers of self and identity. Everyone has an answer to these questions but it’s always about the effect.
I was listening to a Hidden Brain podcast during the week and it started talking about external and internal worlds. It talked about how what’s happening in the external world you can often internalize in your inside world and then can then reflect out into how you are. This is then how people see you so it becomes like a deep cycle of the external affecting the internal which then affects what you see on the external.
This reminded me of the second activity that we did writing how you feel you’re seen versus how you feel. During a lot of these examples, it was interesting to me that I had multiple layers of internalized worried, thoughts and guesses of how my being perceived in the various moments. With every moment mentioned as I was going through the cards, it didn’t take me long, it was kind of a split-second this is how I think I’m being viewed. In a way, it was almost scary, vulnerable to see how I think other people look at me and what makes it worse is that you can’t be certain all the time that’s how someone sees you but there’s a part of you that based off previous experience allows me to overthink about how truthful your worries can be. It’s ironic how in a flip of a switch that worry could become a certainty.
