Z is for Zwischenraum
"True places are not found on maps." -Herman Melville
I want to live in the space between in 2008.
I want to mind the gap and let go of the monkey bars, live in liminal space, the ecotone, the “intérieur,” the threshold and the fold.
I want to move heartily toward that Heideggerian “Zweifalt,” or “double fold,” the twain of “between” and the “Zwischenraum”, the “space in-between.” That’s where the juice is. In that discomfort lives creative friction. Let’s go there, walking into cultural Zwischenraum, a place between systems, like Rilke in his fourth Duino Elegy*, a Zwischenraum, an “in-between-space.”
Freud tells us of betweenness, of the continuous competition between signifying systems each of which seems to want to tell the whole story. Let’s go there in 2008, where our addiction to being right can take a much-needed rest. Perhaps we’ll send our surety to sunbathe on the coast for a while in 2008 while we explore not knowing.
As a fabulous new friend, Andrew Rixon, wrote from Australia, we have a choice of:
a) Being a Human Being
b) Being a Human Doing
c) Being a Human Becoming
Intentions: Every week, put myself in some place or situation where I am an outsider, a minority, a not-knower. Ask respectful questions to learn, not compare or ridicule or judge: “help me understand…” “Help me understand how you create those big holes in your ear lobes.” “Help me understand your religious beliefs about dying.” “Help me understand the significance of your headdress.” Fling myself into space without landing gear once a week while reading a poem about Icarus falling into the sea. Walk toward the spaces between, the transitions. Be a human becoming.
From the last alphabet challenge: Z is for Zinnia
