Something I believe very strongly, mostly from observing changes in myself, is that, once you’ve shoved your own hands deep in the entrails of a building, you’ve permanently altered your entire relationship with the world.
Ah yes, this is really nice. it helps me understand something I’ve been doing for several years now: learning to maintain and repair cars. I’ve always loved cars, but from the outside, as objects of beauty and as thrill rides (I like to drive on race tracks when I can). But when I retired, I knew I wanted to go deeper, to learn how cars were put together and to physically engage with them, get inside the engineering. The car I work on most now—a 10-year old Porsche—is teaching me a lot about the quality of engineering. I’m trying to build up ink in my stomach, I believe.
Your point about shedding initial projections reminds me of Proust’s reflection on this:
“But let a sensation from a bygone year … enable our memory to hear that name with the particular timbre with which it then sounded in our ears, then, while the name itself has apparently not changed, we feel the distance that separates the dreams that its same syllable have meant to us at different times.”
Ah yes, this is really nice. it helps me understand something I’ve been doing for several years now: learning to maintain and repair cars. I’ve always loved cars, but from the outside, as objects of beauty and as thrill rides (I like to drive on race tracks when I can). But when I retired, I knew I wanted to go deeper, to learn how cars were put together and to physically engage with them, get inside the engineering. The car I work on most now—a 10-year old Porsche—is teaching me a lot about the quality of engineering. I’m trying to build up ink in my stomach, I believe.
Lovely meditation.
Love it. Excellent as always.
Your point about shedding initial projections reminds me of Proust’s reflection on this:
“But let a sensation from a bygone year … enable our memory to hear that name with the particular timbre with which it then sounded in our ears, then, while the name itself has apparently not changed, we feel the distance that separates the dreams that its same syllable have meant to us at different times.”
Woah. Fantastic as always. Simple and profound.
I write so much and my poems are normally my memory. I love how they are an ambiguous reflection on that time, ripe for making sense of in the future.
But you have inspired me to take more photos. Even to get out the old DSLR.