the future of a wall, #MwcSpace
The wall I sit in front of makes me think a lot. I don’t get very distracted here. It really needs some art, or a map or a whiteboard on it or I am told. A cognitive controller to either inspire or collect what I am working on or hope to get to in the future. There is a skylight that lights up this wall. The light that hits the wall is therefore harsh. Shadows play around as the day passes so what I am looking at is also animated. To prevent that we have a temporary covering on top of the skylight. As a result, now the light coming through is blue. A combination of blue and yellow. The sheet up above should be tied down especially after a windy day. Such movements animate the wall that I stare at to get words onto the screen.
Where I am sitting in is not a study. I do not have a bookshelf around me now. I sit at this table to write because I mostly like the working of the skylight. It seems better than having books to look at. I do have books, more than necessary but oddly they are in different parts of the house. Few that I need immediately are pilled up next to me the others are in cupboards and on another desk. Before you judge me for it, yes, I am also of the opinion that this setup is not a setup, but it is how it is now. I will get there in the future when the necessary mental resources to remodel beckons.
I invested quite a bit of time thinking about the chair I should sit on. Then I came across Robert Caro’s setup. Man did that make my day. The chair I sit on is old and unassuming. I am told it is my grandfather’s. It’s adequately comfortable nothing aspirational just gets the job done. It has a cane mat seat, thus all the lighter to look at than anything else around. Like the bookshelf, I would want a Herman Miller, but I really wonder if it will be more comfortable than the one, I am on. It is more expensive but, we must wait for that. To write I think there can be two extremes of a maximalist stance to the minimalist. For now, I think I am very in-between but more an aspiring minimalist. I ponder though which direction the scale will better my writing. It definitely is a similar conundrum.
I do have a ton of books but since I don’t directly look at them, I only think about them. Did I or did I not get a particular book, if yes, where do I find that from my many stacks. I collect books therefore it’s different collections I have to browse to get what I am thinking about. It is the way it is. The pile I build up next to me comes from several places. That I think is a problem. I always express my gratitude to the Good Lord that I have found the ThinkPad as an essential tool for thought. It’s because of the keyboard that it has that I partly attribute my interest to keep writing. It is a 21st-century replacement to the typewriter for me. I wouldn’t be able to work on anything else. Recently I looked up the cheapest one available, just in case, I may need one for an emergency.
This wall for me is my space for thought. The wall specifically and not the room. Sunlight and at times shadows, I seem to find very inspiring. I am curious if I change where I sit or look at, would it change the work I produce. Blank walls, like everything else, have significant possibilities, the possibility of a very optimistic future. I am in a mode to think about a future that is full of possibilities. I see that unfold in front of me. There is hope in that image, so I leave it at that. I can think about change here rather than see change. If there was a picture it would fade, a whiteboard, it would be full of ideas about the status of things, but to stare into blankness lets you augment reality. The future as a construct has always been strange though.
