[Previous entry: "Dave Eggers"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "that's verisign"]
04/30/2002 Entry: "Zooming in"
Zooming on TulipsThis post got me thinking. My work with taking photos and doing web stuff is about split 50-50. Often, when I'm away from my computer for a day or so, out taking photos on the Oregon coast or somewhere, I find it difficult and even depressing to come back to my computer and get back into updating sites, answering e-mail, etc.
So, I was thinking- people, evolutionarily speaking, haven't done a lot of sitting down on chairs, in front of computer screens for 8 (or more) hours a day. It's only relatively recently that we've even had dwellings that not only shelter us from the elements, but that separate us so profoundly (through thick walls, air conditioning, heating, and other conveniences) that one of their purposes seems to be to state unequivocally that, "I'm not outside."
But see, most of the time, I don't even realize this, since I've conditioned myself to spend long times in front of the computer, and generally think nothing of it. The times it feels obviously bad are when I'm not doing that, but hiking, photographing, and sleeping outside, and doing some of the same stuff that people have been doing for thousands of years.
I don't feel qualified to speculate on much beyond this anthropologically speaking (or even really to speculate as much as I am), but I do think there's something there, and I wonder which of these feelings (conditioning myself to spend long times in front of the computer versus spending time outdoors and learning from that sort of experience) is more valid, and more beneficial to me in the long run.
Replies: [C.1]
Ah, but you are a shaman; or you would have been during the paleolithic dreamtime ;-) And so you may well have spent an unusual amount of time in 'vision states'; in sweat-lodges, sleeping, down in the caves painting (Lascaux, etc.), or teaching the young of the tribe how to paint or carve or divine their dreams. Many of our modern-world activities can be mapped back onto how we evolved to fit the environment that we inhabited for 50,000 generations (compared to, say, the three that we have lived in the light of advanced science).
Posted by D'log @ 05/03/2002 01:37 PM PST
 |
About the Site . Contact . Archives
 |
» these clouds
» Portland Communique
» Dave Beckerman's Day Book
» This Modern World
» Consumptive
» Luminous Landscape
» Camworld
» McSweeneys
» The Morning News
» Jessamyn West
» Rebecca Blood
» DP Review
» /.
» Derek Powazek
» City Stories
» Common Dreams