Writings and Speculations
Now you see it, now you...
30.4.13The Lived Experience
The outdoor place can be a wonderful thing. I enjoy the sense of 'now', a process which wisemen of the east could gift to you through the insight of tales. Tales of mountains, zen masters and a hungover student in the backseat asking, "are we there yet?" over and over again.
I hold no such insight, for my most frequent reaction to facing a new environment is this
...
Do you see it?
That was an attempt to convey the 'blank sensation'.
As I pass through new territory, I'd like to believe that under my gormless facade sits a brain threading together the unfolding arrangement of landscape features, distance and weather into a delicious casserole, one that releases steaming calculus into the air when you cut into it! But it's blank. Therefore, I'm grateful for the supplements found in documentaries, pictures and yes, writing!
The Reflected Experience
However, sometimes reading about places can leave one in the following stations;
1. The information station
2. The haunted territory station
The information station reminds me of a scene from The Trip, a TV show featuring Coogan and Brydon.
(if this link doesn't work, it features Coogan looking over a beautiful landscape yet having a passer by ruin it by regurgitating information of the geological process)
No one wants to be ear beaten or feel like they're reading through a manual (for the record, I believe manuals can be written and laid out very well! I also believe most of those have been stolen by giants). However, I love finding out how things work!
The haunted territory station is one where a description of 'now' contains information of what came before it. This is a mind boggling world as one is constantly re-clarifying the links of now and then whilst being juggled around in the author's psyche. Most of what I'm reading is in this latter category. However, it's not only in words that landscapes have turned into ghosts, but in images too. I was hoping to take a photo of this sign, located in essex.
Yesterday I found it was gone. Now I hold it here as a piece of digital archeology.
Essex is moving up in the world.
0 comments