"The Lost of The Creature" by Walker Percy.

In this essay by Walker Percy, entitled "The Loss of the Creature" the notions of perception, appreciation, and sovereignty are strongly analyzed. The essay brings to our attention some of the most common things around; which are biases of likeness and manufactured conditioning, en vogue today. It is often said, "perception is reality." Reality to us is the way we look at things, see them, or perceive them. In this decade however, with the fast growing technological innovations and the rapid commercialization (of products and idea, etc...) what we see or perceive and even come to like and appreciate are for the most part someone else's reality, pre-determined, and pre-package ideas; ready to be consume by our pre-condition minds. Our appreciation for thing become dependent upon some expert's or some other stranger's likes or dislikes.

It is exactly this event that renders the object of our desire or place of admiration less genuine and meaningful. We have become so dependent upon the approval of others, that we become less able to decide what's good or bad. Percy provides many examples proving of such happening. To begin, his example of the Grand Canyon with the experience of the Spanish explorer, Garcia Lopez De Cardenas, in comparison with these of today's sightseers on a tour are two immensely different things. He said,

The thing is no longer the thing as it confronted the Spaniards; it is rather that

which has already been formulated- by picture postcard, geography, books,

tourist folders, and the words Grand Canyons. As a result of this pre-formulation,

The source of the sightseer's pleasure undergoes a shift. Where the wonder and

delight of the Spaniards arose from his penetration of the things itself, from a

progressive discovery of depths, patters, colors, shadows, etc., now the

sightseer measures his satisfactions by the degree to which the Canyon conforms

to the performed complex (512).

The quote clearly explains and proves the lack of