I've returned to your words a few times now. The idea of home and attachment is fascinating.
I'm thinking about online connections and social platforms bringing other dimensions to this too. How much are the attachments tied to internal longings than a current satisfaction? And to what extent does quickly falling for a new place represent a nostalgia for objects/ideas/feelings/relationships from the past?
Your reflections could extend in so many directions! I hope that in your contemplation of an uncomfortable truth that you can find renewed comfort within that curious exploration. Thank you so much for sharing and allowing so much food for thought.
Thank you Martin for giving this so much careful consideration. I’m sure a psychologist would have fun with my musings! I’ve come to rely on both place and creativity as providing a place of ease, a way of rebalancing as we navigate what feels like a perpetually uncertain times. Up until now, I’ve had the luxury of those uncertainties being at a distance and this is perhaps the first real challenge for my ‘arrangement’, bringing the realisation that I’m depending on something that is less certain than I expected. Over time I think we vary in our ability to manage change, and there are some aspects of personality/ spectrum that I am now aware of that may also influence this. I’m fairly certain it’s not nostalgia though, but it could be I’m compensating for other (absent) things.
And yet humans – tragic figures in Eliade’s imagination, wandering aimlessly through a landscape that they have chosen to obliterate – still cannot help but retain an urge to sanctify certain parts of life. A kind of atavistic urge lives inside us, an impulse to imbue places with magical meaning, to make them into hallowed ground. Perhaps the place where we were born, the house where we grew up, the café where we met our partner. These places become thin imitations of the holy wells or consecrated precincts that would once have unlocked great wellsprings of meaning.
My places are less to do with personal or family history but I recognise the longing.
Isn’t it? There are so many things over the last year that I have yet to finish! This was the unexpected final project writing from my recent workshop and I was determined to have a tangible outcome. Let’s hope this year will be one of completion!
I've returned to your words a few times now. The idea of home and attachment is fascinating.
I'm thinking about online connections and social platforms bringing other dimensions to this too. How much are the attachments tied to internal longings than a current satisfaction? And to what extent does quickly falling for a new place represent a nostalgia for objects/ideas/feelings/relationships from the past?
Your reflections could extend in so many directions! I hope that in your contemplation of an uncomfortable truth that you can find renewed comfort within that curious exploration. Thank you so much for sharing and allowing so much food for thought.
Thank you Martin for giving this so much careful consideration. I’m sure a psychologist would have fun with my musings! I’ve come to rely on both place and creativity as providing a place of ease, a way of rebalancing as we navigate what feels like a perpetually uncertain times. Up until now, I’ve had the luxury of those uncertainties being at a distance and this is perhaps the first real challenge for my ‘arrangement’, bringing the realisation that I’m depending on something that is less certain than I expected. Over time I think we vary in our ability to manage change, and there are some aspects of personality/ spectrum that I am now aware of that may also influence this. I’m fairly certain it’s not nostalgia though, but it could be I’m compensating for other (absent) things.
I was reading an extract from Katherine May’s latest book (https://www.faber.co.uk/journal/long-read-extract-enchantment-by-katherine-may/) this morning and came across this:
And yet humans – tragic figures in Eliade’s imagination, wandering aimlessly through a landscape that they have chosen to obliterate – still cannot help but retain an urge to sanctify certain parts of life. A kind of atavistic urge lives inside us, an impulse to imbue places with magical meaning, to make them into hallowed ground. Perhaps the place where we were born, the house where we grew up, the café where we met our partner. These places become thin imitations of the holy wells or consecrated precincts that would once have unlocked great wellsprings of meaning.
My places are less to do with personal or family history but I recognise the longing.
That finishing up and getting ready to put something out there - it’s a VERY hard part of the creative job!
Isn’t it? There are so many things over the last year that I have yet to finish! This was the unexpected final project writing from my recent workshop and I was determined to have a tangible outcome. Let’s hope this year will be one of completion!