Discuss: The Nature of Walls

I loved this article, but it had a different meaning for me than the nature/community meaning of the author. I’ve had mcs (multiple chemical sensitivities) for 27 years which requires that I live my life largely cut off from society, and so much of the article had a lot of meaning for me because of this ... I live in a place where I can luckily spend a lot of time on uninhabited offshore islands and I feel more at home on that side of the wall than on the community side of the wall, which I am shut out of by chemicals ...

A couple years ago I took Canadian Literature at University of Manitoba.  My final project was based on a poem by John Newlove called “Ride Off Any Horizon”.  I did a sequence of photos that portrayed the false horizons we provide for ourself to make us feel more secure, and argued that by losing sight of the natural horizon we lost a connection with something far bigger, and far more meaningful than the walls we have erected.  I would like to contribute that poem to this discussion of walls.  It’s quite long, so I won’t include it, but please take a minute to look it up.  I found it really hit home.

It is refreshing and liberating to be reminded that walls, however cleverly crafed or aggressively fortified, do seem to always fail.

Yet, it seems to me that when a wall fails, another always takes its place. If one wall fails, in its place another always succeeds. So, perhaps walls do not simply always fail. Maybe there’s just always a wall.

It’s weird to say it, but walls succeed and fail at the same time because they are not just ‘things’ but relationships. They are, in other words, a medium, and like a relationship, they exist, remain intact, and function, while never totally succeeding or totally failing. They’re contradictory. They more effectively mediate between some things (success) and less effectively with others (failure). Put slightly differently, they always fail and they always succeed. And either way, they always exist, for without them—without relationships—It, This, and We would be meaningless.

To help anything thrive in this world, I think it doesn’t help to be afraid of walls. And ecologically speaking, it certainly doesn’t help to be afraid of the wall between nature and culture. It is the romantic fear of culture that perfectly reinforces this very wall. Is it not apparent yet that this wall, this relationship, does not work? Without the individualized romance and heroism of nature vs. culture, without the traditional fears—from either side—that sustain this bankrupt dichotomy—we pragmatics can build some walls and relationships that help things, as best we can see, live and thrive.

Jon Piasecki seems more an architect of the mind. A lovely and deep article! I feel a local identity for all of us is a must; without it we may not be able live. But we must remember that this identity is a temporary gift given to us to be used sparingly. If we hold it close to our chest, never letting go of it at least for brief periods in our everyday life, we lost our global identity where the ‘other’ becomes myself.

Once again it’s a great article.

The author mentioned a lot of walls but unfortunately he did mention the unique walls that were built over 5000 years ago - that is before Stonehenge, the pyramids and the great wall of China.

These walls that were used to build temples that are found on the Maltese Islands right in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.

It must be mentioned that limestone is a wonderful stone with which to build a building.

Hello to all of you who commented.

I wrote that article. And I am so touched that you all took the time to comment and think about it.

You have made my day.

Thanks

Jon

As an old nature mystic I spent many years trying to live as close to nature as possible. I lived in a tipi for several months. The sides are raised for air when the weather is warm, the earth is the floor, the sky visible through the smoke hole which is adjusted to accommodate the wind and at night our silhouettes are visible from outside. I’ve also lived in a yurt with windows all around and it was a similar feeling so my experiences with living within walls during that time in my life was that they were interpenetrable with my environment.

I loved the article and the thoughts behind it but I just wanted to say that in my experience walls are not necessarily all that solid.

And also, to Kathi, now I have MCS too and live in a city which is very difficult and if it were not for the very solid walls of my centrally heated and air conditioned apartment, I could not survive. Now I am glad that my walls are not interpenetrable with my environment! I’m writing about environmental matters in my blog at http://goodwordswan.wildflowerstew.com

To Laura

What an amazing and eloquent poem.  Thank you.

To Kathi

I hope the people that think walls work so well never decide to use chemical walls.  Maybe they already do. Please enjoy those offshore islands.