Studs n Stripes XXYYX

My post of yesterday made me realize once again all objects made by humans came first from ideas. Eureka! So what, you say, such a simple and self-evident thing. But one we often overlook. Neither easy to grasp, nor “live up to”. A fact nevertheless. Let us look a bit more closely.

While sitting in this room, writing these posts, everything around was born from ideas. The building, our seventh-floor apartment in which I’m sitting, would not exist if someone hadn’t designed it. The bamboo table and chairs at which we eat our meals: someone planted, then harvested the bamboo, another had the idea to make a table.

The lamps, the many masks on the wall, two sculptures carved by Inuit, numerous woodcarvings from faraway places like Bali, Easter island, the Solomons, etc which adorn the window sills – all were once ideas in the creators’ minds. Same with the artwork on the walls (mine and other cultures).

Someone in Peru dyed and wove the textile that covers the couch. On the balcony we’d have no plants without the pots some potter made. Kitchen utencils, books, pens, brushes, pencils, the paper I write this on, all were once ideas.

Everything made by humans was born from ideas. In a sense, I could be sitting in my “birthday suit” or with a leaf cover on the grass here at the seashore, with the skies our roof.

No furniture, no pots and pans, no cutlery, no building, no seventh floor apartment, no bed, no clothes, no plants.

In such a reality, I can only write or paint in the air, on sand, in snow, or rocks and cave walls. No blog either, only smoke signals and Tam-tam drum messages!

All this material. What is all the fuss about?

But did the so-called ‘primitive’ cultures or first-peoples not already do this? Maybe we should try to become civilized primitives? But where to start? We’re in it too deep to return.

But then again, almost all the first-peoples are now extinct or hanging on for dear life, or have been ‘integrated’ into our fast-forward culture.

Now for me comes the biggest question of all: Who, What, Where did all that SPACE come from? That which gave birth to Galaxies, Universes, Planets, Stars and Life.

Rumour has it, everything came from the Big Bang. But the Big Bang had to come from Somewhere, and what is that somewhere, i.e. Where did all that Space come from? Signing off for now, Henri