flâneur

The Importance of Counter-Clockwise Dance Rituals

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Most of us live inside a grid—and it’s usually part of a larger grid. In this kind of world, life is mostly moving from one rectangle to another. We navigate through these rectangles by holding other rectangles in our hands. Only in rare moments do we get a glimpse of life outside these grids. Many find this disorienting or frightening. They can’t wait to return to the safety of the rectangle. The rectangle is all about solidity, strength, and separation. That’s why the iPhone, like the skyscraper, evokes the defensive boxes of medieval fortresses—the safest rectangles of their time. Neuroscientist and philosopher Iain McGilchrist—whom I’ve claimed elsewhere “ranks among our half dozen most important living thinkers”—explains that “straight lines predominate wherever the left hemisphere [of the brain] predominates.” The pervasiveness of straight lines and box-centric lifestyles in today’s culture is a warning sign that we are fostering a psychically claustrophobic society—one that obse

We live in a world of lines, squares, and boxes. Here’s what a modern city looks like. Most of us live inside a grid—and it’s usually part of a larger grid. In this kind of world, life is mostly moving from one rectangle to another. We navigate through these rectangles by holding other rectangles in our hands. Only in rare moments do we get a glimpse of life outside these grids. Many find this disorienting or frightening. They can’t wait to return to the safety of the rectangle. The rectangle is all about solidity, strength, and separation. That’s why the iPhone, like the skyscraper,…

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