How does space shape us?

This morning I was jotting some thoughts about resistance. I’ve learned (and others have reached these same conclusions) that it’s difficult to try to force myself; That requires a lot of mental energy which I often run short of. What works is when I have a clearly delineated space for the task at hand. I sit here to do the writing. I go to this space to do my painting. I use this notebook and this particular pen to work on my book.

I’m not interested in paternalistic nudges or vapid prompts to think twice, but rather, something like the way a well-designed park creates space both to gather and to wander—quiet benches tucked under trees alongside open fields fit for games, pathways for walking in ones and twos, blooms and birdhouses that invite a moment of rest.

~ Mandy Brown, from What are we making together?

The insight I had, this morning while jotting, was why having a particular set of surroundings, tools, or materials actually works. Resistance exists when I’ve forgotten my reason. Whatever our work is, we originally had some motivation to set out on the undertaking. When we feel resistance it’s because those reasons and motivations are not active in our minds right in that moment.

In this moment, we need to be reminded that stories of the future—about AI, or any kind—are never just about technology; They are about people and they are about the places that those people find themselves, the places they might call home and systems that bind them all together.

~ Genevieve Bell

When we go to that space, or pick up those special materials, we are reminded of our reasons and motivations. Reminded is an interesting word: We often use it flippantly, “remind me to…” But it powerfully shatters resistance by bringing something again (thus the prefix “re”) into our mind: When I sit here in this space, it re‑minds me of my reasons and motivations.

I remember the first tree I loved as a child, an ash in my backyard. I leaned against it to count to 10 for hide-and-seek, I sat under it when I felt tired, and my dad built me a treehouse in it from which to survey my domain. The tree provided piles of autumn leaves to jump in, sharing its bounty into the early days of winter.

~ Sarah Boon, from Look past the woods – each tree is an individual to be cherished

Now, I hope, you see why I started with Brown’s, “quiet benches tucked under trees alongside open fields.” What does that re‑mind for you?

We know well how to use the technology of open and green spaces. We know well how to use the technology of parks, benches, fields and trees. How long did it take us to master those technologies?

False science and false religion express their dogmas in highly elevated language to make simple people think that they are mysterious, important, and attractive. But this mysterious language is not a sign of wisdom. The wiser a person is, the simpler the language he uses to express his thoughts.

~ Lucy Malory

Today, the word technology is used to refer to computers and to the Internet. My use, just above, of technology may have even seemed strange. None the less, I hope you see that all those parks, benches, trees, and computers too are naught but tools we are using to accomplish something. Frankly, I’m not surprised that with only about 75 years of practice with computers, we haven’t yet mastered this technology.

Our work has revealed a deep ambivalence in people’s relationship with their cellphones, even while they are becoming an integral part of our everyday lives. The technology interacts in complex ways with our identities, and our relationships, through its various capabilities. Cellphones paradoxically are alleviating some socioeconomic divisions in society while also reinforcing others, and creating new forms of inequality. Our companionship with phones is complicated: We both love and hate them.

~ Joshua A. Bell et al, from How Cellphones Make and Break Human Connections

It’s as if we’d not yet figured out how to build a good park bench, in a way that accomplishes something we actually want to accomplish. You know there must have been a time when people didn’t build park benches, right? And now we do. How did that happen?

Today, we’ve only just figured out that brightly colored benches attract our eyes, and so for now every bench is going to be hot pink and flame orange and flashing. (Earlier, literal example: Recall that web sites used graphics of construction barricades before they were done. Why did that stop?) So yes, it’s going to take a while to learn how to make this new technology work best for society.

I’m saying that it is necessary to share meaning. A society is a link of relationships among people and institutions, so that we can live together. But it only works if we have a culture—which implies that we share meaning; i.e., significance, purpose, and value. Otherwise it falls apart.

~ David Bohm

How does culture happen? Does it simply fall out that we all have a shared meaning? No. Culture is the total of all our individual actions. From the small wave of hello we offer to the person we don’t know, all the way to the political rally we organize. It matters that you actually sit on that park bench, as much as it matters that the bench is there. That’s how you normalize sitting on benches, gazing at trees and green spaces. Use the new technology of computers to do good things, to normalize doing good things.

So it’s odd to think about humanity as a temporary flourishing between the peaks of somebody else’s civilisation, whether it’s cephalopods or dinosaurs. Birds are just little Napoleons, exiled on their St. Helena of deep time, before they make their vengeful return. Octopus patiently biding their time until the fish clear off again. And here we are, just keeping the seat warm.

~ Matt Webb, from Keeping the seat warm between peaks of cephalopod civilisation

It is indeed odd to think such thoughts, and such thinking should not be odd. We should be thinking bigger thoughts more often. Because those cephalopods had a 55 million year window (before vertebrate fish came along and wrecked it for them) where they could have rose and fell. Humans have been strutting around, like we own the place, for precisely one blink on the geologic timescale. Will the next cephalopod civilization even notice we were here?

Until next time, thanks for reading.

ɕ

PS: I recently realized comments have been broken on this site… uh, basically forever. Ouch, sorry. Shout out to Wayne who last week dropped in the first comment. Wayne, I’m glad you like ’em, and thanks for making me smile.