Loss of the Creature - Walker Percy

We put an immense amount of trust into others experiences and furthermore allow it to dictate our own. I have not done a lot of traveling, but I know that there is a desire to see something new, to make a revolutionary finding. We allow ourselves to use the internet when travelling, to find specific destinations but not knowing that our own discoveries and findings, are what we make of our true experiences. Percy explains a loss of sovereignty in this world and how one has lost an experience through various “symbolic complexes” and by the means of trying to achieve that experience. I, myself can relate to the experience of the man from Boston, taking his family to see the Grand Canyon but not actually seeing the sight for what it really is. Sometimes all we get to see is what has been approved and not what the real "thing" is, therefore leaving a person to see what everyone else is seeing because we will not be able to actually see beyond the approvements due to what an expert may tell us what is expected of the experience.

My family and I had not done a lot of traveling but during the summer of 2008, we were off to see the Niagara Falls for the first time ever. Prior to leaving, i was told various experiences from friends and family and had even seen pictures about how their trip had went, and it made me think that maybe my experience would be just as great. After reading Walker Percy's essay on "The Loss of the Creature", i soon realized that my experience of visiting the Niagara Falls might have been lost through various symbolic complexes. Percy explains the example of the "the Grand Canyon, the thing as it is, has been appropriated by the symbolic complex which has already been formed in the sightseer's mind (Ways of Reading, Pg. 482)", and that i may be seeing and viewing the Niagara Falls from others experiences. However, the next day upon our arrival we were off to see the Niagara Falls, as we arrived i had noticed that almost everyone had a tour