contents   <<   >>

 
Place and Form

The meaning of things

        On the strength, not of a good argument based on how reality is made up of atoms, but on the common method of saying things that make everybody feel good immediately and for a short while after, whole civilisations have been built around satisfying the daily need. And this, as we all know, is the very thing that keep it humming. When the rain falls, we run for our hats and overcoats, as drops hit the heads but we are sure of how the axle turns - about where to place the ball bearings and many other real things like that.

        The place where you pass your time is a space where fused into the walls is your memory, a sensation of being absorbed in the some past episodes in all their multiple geometries of being, a city, its flesh, its people. Obvious! You will say but where there is your true presence, it tears out of the cold stone masonry, out of the ground. This is the place where all knowledge will dawn.

        Or where you might well have been born, Terra Natalizia, of the sound of those speeches, the song in the sound of every human being. Having said that, I shall never understand the heart of the mariner, the one who yearns for the monotony of the oceans and all the mystery of floating. Some hunt whales. Others drill oil right there among the wavy waters, inhaling the bitch's burning brew. Others do cargo, smile a lot, ask no questions, the miles make the dollars - on that ship.

        Many are content just to own a small cart, a couple of horses, a few oxen and some sheep with which they partake in open space. In a cottage, the difficulty of attaining wealth is clearly illustrated. There are many more cottages than there are palaces, yet someone somewhere would occupy all the strata. You are secure from need and envy. You are the the postal clerk in the age of the world wide web. You want a lush designed garden. Refinements come with a price.

 

 

 

<<   >>