The spaces we live within

Whilst thinking about the spaces between words it suddenly occurred to me that there is a space that I had not noticed before. The one that surrounds me, that I live in. I can see the cupboard on the other side of the room but I do not notice the gap in between, my mind just leaps straight to what I see and starts thinking about it. Yet, like one of those optical illusional drawings, if I stop and concentrate the room kind of flips round and I can see the space defined by all the objects around me, the space that I move in, within which I am a void.

A good few years ago an artist had the same idea I think. She would cast and make solid the inside of a room and take it outside to stand on its own. I did not get it at the time, but I think I do now.

The space between people I notice much more. If I am talking with a stranger and the conversation dies away then that gap between us rises up and I feel an intense urge to close it by talking. Nervousness or shyness I suppose because the more I know someone the more at ease I am to be silent with them.

All of this is much more obvious in a city I think, where we are all jammed so much closer together. A trip on the tube (subway, metro . . .) or in an elevator becomes a dance of sorts as well pull in our personal spaces as close as possible and squeeze around and between each other.

And there is more. Having watched this talk on TED I now discover that all that I can see and feel is only a tiny part, 4% of what is there. The rest it seems is dark matter and dark energy that has been named, but nobody actually knows what it is . . .


Life is never dull because it is so big . . .