itookthepillyougaveme

I chose De Certeau. Although seen by many as ridiculously pseudointellectualized, I adore it.

Walking In The City is very Tolkien-esque stylistically. Linguistically, I suppose. De Certeau talks about standing above the city — looking down from the skyscraper, where everything looks clean and orderly. He calls it a “God’s-eye view.” How we’ve built these massive, humming machines of efficiency — cities, algorithms, industries — all designed to make movement predictable. The characterization of how we’ve built this world of certainties around us, to lock ourselves into a labyrinth of calculated eventualities. Everything is mapped, planned, down to the millimetre. We’re supposed to walk the straight lines, follow the signals, and stay in sync with the rhythm of the machine. That damn machine. This boils down to our constant quest for comfortability, for explanation(why people are religious). This is precisely why I love this concept. Existence is predicated upon interpretation, as we know. I want to be swayed, finding comfort in dissecting this reality, but too often I find myself leached with more melancholy than not. A silent gargantuan humbling of that which just is our actuality. It shows how easily we get absorbed into these systems — the “machine” of industrialization, capitalism, whatever you want to call it — where we think we’re making choices but really we’re just walking the paths someone else designed. Infinite caveats.

Slugs. I love linking this video. It’s satire, it’s me, and its so real, and so self aware in it’s futile silliness. Check it out. It’s almost wholesome. Mr.putyouon.

Upon revisitation.

I cannot say that the third read of this piece definitively altered by intake of it more than the prior two, but the writing and assignments I’ve undergone since then certainly have. I am lost without my GPS in a new city, a newborn babe chained to dependency upon my “personal” machine, that is just an extension of my dependency on the actual machine. I find myself often wrapping my mind into these rantings of industrial society, oh you’re just an ant you’re just a bug. Haha. You are. I am. De Certeau likens walking to “existing outside of your blueprint, which is both trivial and beautiful, as it’s just a physical arm of defining your existence. I guess that’s what i like the most. The physical take on subconscious, conscious rebellion. For the sake of yourself.

As Edward Abbey says, “growth for the sake of growth”. We’re all just on Crete, either looking for the exit of the labyrinth, happily wandering it, or in constant dismay that your purpose is to wander it. Looking for what? More? Something…right?

Where have your soles gone, where do you want them to go, and what shoes will you wear? How will that change where you end up? How will that shape your soul? Very nifty indeed.