The Life-Illusion

(approaching Race Hill) Another lockdown has descended and, again, I find myself longing to be outside rather than inside. Perhaps this is a strange, contrarian impulse in me, however, it seems that I'm not alone in feeling this way. With people being restricted to their immediate locale, unable to go out and work, socialise, or do any of their usual civic activities, walking has presented a welcome escape from the drudgery and stuffiness of being stuck indoors for weeks and weeks on end. I can see this as only being a good thing – roads are less busy and more pedestrian-friendly, people are immersing themselves more regularly in nature, for some it has been a source of creativity. People are re-discovering the places they live and for many this has been a meaningful experience. I have always found this to be the case when exploring my local area. For me, walking provides the closest thing to a religion – it is a time for solace and reflection, communion with nature, discovery a...

- 'The Golden Bough' (1834) by J. M. W. Turner    That we shall never map the totality of things should be cause for consolation rather than abjection. Even in the minutiae of the earth, the provincial backwater that is human civilisation, the map tends towards infinity – something is always left out. In such a seemingly finite space, such a container should eventually become full, right? And yet, with each passing second, each passing glance, things appear differently – mutating, merging, crumbling, absorbing, becoming, always, something else. How could the maps ever keep up to date? And, each perceiver of such topographical features and suchlike things that make up the map, what of the transformative power of their perceptions? What of the weight and influence of their fluctuating emotions, their prejudices, their language, what they had for breakfast that morning? Such features are mapped by the mind in a continual process of self-re-creation, filtering the chaos of the wo...