(Segment 12)
Let it happen, at least once. Mash up your mashed potatoes and get ready to head outside because today will finally be the day. Board the bored boat – a vessel of no surprises. Now you understand the importance of your mashed potato meal, where else would you have gotten the necessary calories to walk up the gangplank?
The currency of our exchange is letters. Words and letters and sentences, maybe some paragraphs are thrown in there too BUT letters are important. Characters which characterise meaning, almost as if by design. When I am presented with a blank page, letters become the very physical manifestation of my thoughts, not only as a necessary side-effect of communication, but as their own embodied aesthetic interventions (for want of a better word, believe me I tried). The true complexity of expressing a subjective feeling with words is immense, arguably insurmountable, but we try anyway and that is important. For while we may never communicate pure 1:1 feeling with another, we can build half of the bridge and hope that the recipient builds the other half.
We are left with a fully formed, two halves bridge.
And so we build the bridge solidly, foundations built and triangulated. Share the load and traverse with caution (at first), follow this approach with a mad dash to the finish line and greet what ever lies on the opposite side warmly.
Letters, and the letters that form up into text, can be drawn with.
I draw with text – the action of instruction prompting an engagement.
An embodied engagement.
Is it possible for me to complete this request? I can now think of myself, at least hypothetically, attempting the task.
Importantly: at this stage you have already started the task (don’t forget your mashed potato).