Let me start out by saying that not having any sort of location is AWFUL. I don't think this is, or can be, what Morton was implying occurs under the ecological thought-- or if it is, future humans will have a much greater ability to comprehend weirdness than I (and I flatter myself that I am something of a connoisseur where weirdness is concerned).
First of all, when you're "living delocalized", it's very difficult to decide to go anywhere, and therefore do anything. The minute I thought "I feel like swinging on a swingset" my mind jumped to "I want to go to the-- wait, wait, don't think it--" which never worked, I ended up thinking "park" and then I sat there trying to think of something else. So it was a day which mainly consisted of quiet meditation, which would have been fine had I not at times been incredibly frustrated at my inability to make any decisions without this preconceived idea of localized space.
Then I got a text from my best friend, who is currently in Lyon, France, and let me tell you, nothing makes you more aware of space, the vast distances and horrible textures, than knowing that the one person whom you most want to see is in France. Without the concept of space, I couldn't reason with myself that I shouldn't pick up the phone and call her right that instant. I couldn't even really convince myself that she wasn't still at Tulane, chilling in the LBC (I have enough trouble with that most of the time; we've known each other since we were eight). Space translates to inflated phone bills and thus differently weighted decision making. Space affects time-- when I get out of my 3:30-5:00 class, she's already on her way to bed. I'm going to be honest and say that I cheated on this part-- I texted my friend back, despite knowing that doing so I had to keep in mind the idea of France and thus localized space.
Occasionally I made the conscious decision to wander somewhere. In order to do this, though, I had to cheat and go down in the elevator to the first floor (I didn't want to risk wandering into the dormroom of someone I didn't know). I ended up at this part of Tulane I hadn't known existed, which was perfect for me because I didn't know what it was called and it was easier for me to think of it as some amorphous space blending into every other space that ever was. I didn't have any memories to associate with it or any preconceived notions of what that space was supposed to do. I stayed there for quite some time, staring at grass and wishing I had brought a book. I got a lot of thinking done, which I suppose is good. When the sun started looking like it was thinking about setting I decided the day could be over and I went home-- and it is incredibly freeing to think the word "home" when it's all you've been trying not to think for six hours-- and on the walk home I started letting the associations flow over me, and it felt extraordinarily liberating. "This place is called X. Y happened here, and Q, and Z." The closer I got to my dorm, the more densely interwoven the associations became. I felt as though I were walking through a web of all of my past experiences. And entering my dormroom, I unrestrainedly thought to myself that it was mine, that it was full of my things-- it was like being four years old again, in a way-- and I felt this strange sense of pride in being able to name all of the things, or most of them, and say where they came from. And I had a sense of what the space was for, what I had done in it, what I would do in it in the future.
In conclusion, I think space is a useful concept. All of this is sort of irrelevant because the more I read of The Ecological Thought the less I believe that Morton is implying we should do away with space entirely. It's more, I suppose, like that idea of cubes of jello which Mauricio mentioned in class today-- acknowledging that space is amorphous, that the nature of spaces can shift. I think of something someone said in my class with Dr. Schaberg-- that a restaurant is a restaurant because the waiters and cooks and customers show up everyday; if a ballet troupe shows up one day instead with a boombox and a barre the restaurant is for all intents and purposes a dance studio. We should be aware that the function of a space can change, aware that next year someone else will live in my room, and in the years after that the building may be demolished (it really should be demolished) and used for something else, possibly by someone else, and possibly that someone will not be human.
The experiment was still useful for the development of my land ethic. I don't regret doing it. Much.
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