the spirit and the body are inextricably linked. we need our mental life but we also need application through action to grow. to continually grow, to chart territories and mark new nodes, creating new networks, is to live.
in daily life, engrossed with work, cudgeled into submission, Habit takes over. if we allow Habit to become our entire existence, our mental life dies and at some point, the spirit drowns in its own lost memories of dreams, struggles and ambitions. without our spirit, how do we express ourselves?
i have a theory about modes of expression. modes of expression is any field of activity that allows deliberate action enacted in daily life that actualises our thoughts and aspirations. primitive man lived his life largely through actions that pertained to his means of survival. the methods were many but the aims were the same, to tame nature and to ensure his primal needs were met. through the means he picked, he found a skill he could cultivate according to the land, the time, the climate he was directly part of. to survive, he needed to be good at anything from archery to setting traps; from foretelling climatic change to knowing the best location to set up shelter. through these fields of activities, his need for a direct application of his own thoughts finds expression. surely some of these actions are the bases for the formation of traditions that must have become habitual, but also tends to not lose its significance as easily as the link between action as means and to the knowable ends are closed, near and not easily lost. man expressed himself naturally and was alive.
so if marx talks about estranged labour, he almost helps my theory along in suggesting a need for man to participate in an institution NOT alien to his nature. as is the case, we know what has happened to all who dare dwell and even act on the com--mu-n1--st. man-1f--3sto. and it is safe to conclude that the the industrial revolution came and went (in the developed nations, leaving the skid marks of its necessary existence and logic in the laps of forever-developing nations) and man's general needs for survival are generally taken care of. the alienation is complete but sees no sign of abating. there are new levels of numbness attainable, there are.
modes of expressions are not luxuries - we make the choices whether we know it or not. if we spend 90% of our waking hours repeatedly doing something, it becomes us. we naturalise it and it is how we exist. if it means we do not actualise our thoughts and aspirations; if our actions are not a direct correlate of our active mental life, we stop growing and our spirit slowly dies away. we exist but do not live.
this affliction does not only prey on people in the factories but the people in their suit and ties. they die as their mental lives falter and wither away. they die as their struggles to carve out a reality of their own is pummelled in their place, right next to naive dreams and unrealistic escapism. but must we make like johnny ruskin and argue for moral highground for craft over prefabrication? must we pack up our 9to5s and shove it up theirs for a life seeing the world? perhaps but not for the other 95% of us.
even a weekend pickup basketball game is a chance for expressing myself. if i apply myself and not cruise along, i am directly applying myself positively - making my mark. for me, its like an artist having to paint. the aim is to fight an alienation that infects us on the most personal of levels – that estranges us from our actions.
i have friends who envy architects because we are supposedly one of the professions best primed to 'live our passion' in what i believe is in line with what i am on about here - being able to create and live as a result of being able to express ourselves through our work. i'd like to agree but cannot for a host of reasons. but if my theory of modes of expression holds, anybody can grow if they're able to find time in their lives for a personal milieu of action as their battleground. even if its all in the head.
pick your fights, win the battle.
