TOK FINAL

Every person perceives the world in a different way. There are different factors that make you see things in a different way. These factors are called filters, and range from where you grew up to who you are friends with. In some ways, the filters are the reason you act the way you do, or why you think the way you do. They are the basis of what makes you as a person. To find out how things really are, one most examine these filters.
I will begin with where you grew up, what your surroundings where. This one filter determines a lot of things that determine how you live your life. If you lived in a big house, in a quite little suburb, than your thinking process is going to be different than a person that lived there life opposite of that. This is because you spent your whole life viewing a place where everything is clean, and nice, and even the people are great. Someone else saw something completely different. You are unaware of some of the bad things in life. You were completely sheltered as a kid and are unaware of some of the things that go on around you. For example, your and your friends are walking down the street and you see some one getting robbed, or something to that extent. You do not know what to do because up until that point, nothing like that has happened before. To that some one else who came from a different place it is different. They might have seen stuff that is in comparison to that multiple times before. They might know what to do. They perceive the world in a different way than you and acted in a different way than you just because of the place they lived.
A filter that is just equally important is how you were raised. Every person is different. That means that they raise their children with different morals, ethics, and everything else they should teach you. This filter has a great impact on how you act because it has always been around you. When you are around something, like in this case an attitude, you are going to start having the same sort of attitude towards things. You are going to most of the same morals as your mom and dad did because that is the way they taught you. Your morals are different from everyone else in the world because of that reason. You were taught that something was wrong but someone else’s parents did not. For example, like the saying, "If you do not have anything nice to say, do not say anything at all." You might have been told this and followed it many, many, times before. Somebody else who was taught that it is better to speak your mind will say that they think someone is a complete idiot. You would sit there and think that person is being rude, but that is just because they do not share the same values as you do.
Filter number three is who you hang out with. You see these people just as much as you see your only family. They are there in your life a lot and you do a lot of things with them. Stuff you do not even do with the people you live with. They influence your life tremendously. I am talking about peer pressure, in a way. But not all peer pressure is bad. Some people might influence you in a good way. Like stop you from stealing, breaking stuff or doing all those other stuff that will break the law or get you into trouble. Bad peer presure is a supposed friend tells you to do something that will get you into trouble. It does not even have to be something major. For example, say you are hanging out at an amusment park and you and the group of people you are with go see one of those shows they have. When it is over and everyone has left a girl turns to you and tells you to run across the stage. You do and some guy who works there yells at you all to get out. Thats not to bad. Another example is when that friend tells you to press a big red button that is in your science room, and once you do lights start flashing. Things like that are the things you should not listen to and should not do. Depending on who your friends are, depends on how you view some of the world.

Another factor is your orientation. This factor mostly depends on the generation. Our generation, the one that is still in high school or just left it, think that it is o.k. to be gay. We see nothing wrong with it. People who are much older than us think the exact opposite. Their view on this is different and they think it is wrong. This can be because they grew up in a different time. The younger generations are growing up with people being this way all around them. We think nothing of it. To us, it is just the way people are, no big deal. Before, it was less common. This can fit into the factor of how you are raised. Some children are raised by their parents to think that loving someone of the same sex is wrong. They grow up thinking that it is wrong.

The last filter that I am going to go into depth about is the expierences you encounter. These experiences determine a lot on how you think and what you think about the world. Some experiences you can create yourself. Like going hiking, rock climbing, or even white water rafting. These activities you do create an experience which you think is fun, and if your life is filled with experiences like these, you might start to think that the world is a place where you have loads of fun. Other experiences are those that are spontanious and you do not like very much. These can define you as a person. Let us say that you are in a bank and you are filling out some sort of sheet at the exact moment that it is robbed. A lot of different things happen, an example is that someone gets shot, and it starts to make you think of the world differently than you did before. You now view the world as a place that makes mistakes, that is not all good, and that bad things happen in it.

There are endless factors, filters, that can determine how someone views the world. All these factors make a person view the world on different ways. These filters determine who you are as a person, what your actions are through your life, and why you think a certain way.