Study booths and Sabbath: the enduring requirement for headspace
I was looking at study booths in an academic library.
Pictures of them.
Beautiful. Different these days.
Pale warm plastered wall.
Arched recess, with ambient lighting falling gently from its apex.
A cushioned high-backed bench from the wall,
inset, cut off at an angle to allow easy access.
A desk coming out from the wall.
And all — ALL — in this pale colour and finish. Exact.
(I want one.)
Someone might say,
Well, back in my day…
and then go on to say this is too much luxury for today's students.
But then, what are today's students up against?
(Not just the school leavers and the career academics, but everyone who thinks about things much.)
Glaring flashing light, hyperstimulation, even governments — foreign governments — pumping messaging and politics dressed as entertainment, fear-mongering like the Hunger Games, while leagues and stats determine what's normal, and even the BBC churns out answers to today's everyday problems, and chat bots and apps fill in the details… pump, pump, pump >>> flash, churn, spin, glaring…
With all that going on, forming and transforming brains and paradigms, how could anyone
— read a book?
— wonder about old paintings?
— discover connections that were not handed to them gift-wrapped on a tray to put back on the stack afterwards, like in a school canteen, or the airport security queue. Radars. Officials. Dinner ladies. Clattering. Keep moving please… and through the scanner…
Alcoves.
Ambience.
Pale plaster.
Shh…
People say things have to change because young people face different things these days.
People don't usually say — some of the changing things are —
'that word' —
contingent.
(Not foundational.)
Someone with a megaphone is bleeding into everything…
It's symptomatic, really.
Possibly regrettable.
Possibly unavoidable.
Even babies' brains.
Pump. Pump. Pump.
Ha — I just heard (I was multi-tasking) a well-connected intelligent person say that this [whole thing] is actually not a thing after all.
Not really.
Just designed to keep our attention.
ATTENTION
Who deserves that attention? Who steals it?
Who is crippling it — has crippled it, generally?
(The interviewer lit up with visible relief!
The paradigm shifted. And was that — joy?
Yet in recalling it I had to substitute the claim for a square bracket generality because I cannot for the life of me source the specific reference I was sure I heard. Only near neighbours.
Nevertheless, in my mind‘s eye, I do recall the moment —
Look at him.
Relief.
Is still available.
Perhaps it always will be.
Perhaps that's what the Bible says.)
How are we supposed to,
well —
anything?
Anything worth it, anyway.
Calculating, optimising, extracting
everything possible is chunked.
Data discerns, determines
what is valuable. Viable.
Shaped as we shape.
Switching roles.
Tag-team no longer required.
Something else can take it from here.
Someone asked me once, in the eighties,
What do you think you are worth?
I joked.
Well, half-joked.
It was something I'd heard.
About £1.76 melted down.
Don't worry, the machines and machinists aren't melting us.
Not literally.
But — re-emphasizing, reframing.
Correcting. (While hugging.)
Omitting. Sidelining.
Don't take it personally, that's just how it works
with maths. Applied maths.
(Don't ask about pure maths. If you do you're not being practical or realistic.)
Pure maths is for those at the top of the Maslowian pyramid.
Like spas.
All the rest of you need is a quick shower then off again.
But here's the point I'm getting to:
Pure maths is
what was always the case.
Logically. Ontologically.
Melt it down if you like. Do it.
As the contingent dross leaves
(can't take the heat)
you'll find it even more rigorously
true.
And meanwhile
the pale plaster alcove with the inset ambient lighting that was designed as luxurious and remedial — to comfort and support in an atmosphere of overload for those seeking deeper thinking — that's not only what's needed to mitigate what's happening.
It becomes necessary in the light of
how things are. For today's students.
Necessary to lessen the inflaming
stress and tension
of the constant ATTENTION-sucking
presentation of all the information,
including those parts they cannot live without.
(Make sure you check your EMAIL regularly! We'll TEXT the appointment date. And if there's danger we'll pump alarm bells through your PHONE.
To keep you safe. You're welcome.)
How long before on the Health Service we get prescriptions for
alabaster walls.
museums to sleep in.
galleries to detox in.
The Holy of Holies.
Poems? That's already happening.
For most it may sound like a padded cell. Dystopian nightmare.
Like the Equilibrium movie, and the rooms they sleep in. Stark.
But it seems after all like
that's the architecture
that has always ended up being needed
for the deeper things.
Even in conversation.
Phones in the box please. Switch it off, we're trying to speak and listen.
Always something is bidding for our ATTENTION.
I see now. It's always essential, is Sabbath. The real meaning.
(I'm so bad at that. I must not stop trying, though.)
Twas always thus.
