HUMAN-MADE SNOW
What is organic, what isn’t

Day 5 of the snow storm Istanbul faced. The Sun dispersed the clouds and he is working the last steps of this natural cycle: the melting. The silence of the snow falling, interrupted by gusts of icy winds, has now been replaced by dripping icicles and small torrents will start to form along the many hills of Istanbul.

While this white pristine cover submerged us in hibernation, unable to really reach our daily obligations, the holidays got extended, the productivity needs of responding to new year goals faltered and lost their sense. The snow impeded on a year of terrible events and kept us in a present of delight. It was time to have fun with this unlikely friend covering the street. Our innocences lost found. What could happen again, would happen again after the snow? Now is the only time to go outside, explorers of the neigbourhood, to come back home with tales of wonder.

I’d like to share this excerpt from Naomi Alderman’s essay on the Arctic Circle called Bear Food. It was published in the Issue no: 4 of the Happy Reader:

“It is all lies, and it is all invention. Or at least it is all human, created by us, and without any reality in the world as it exists. (…) In (insert your city), where I live, every single thing I see every day was put there by a human at some point. The buildings, of course, the pavements, the street signs, the shopfronts, the advertisements. Of course, all of those. But also the ‘natural’ things: the trees were placed, the strips of lawn were placed, the weeds growing between the cracks even have been suffered to live or to be cut down by the local council. The birds, the foxes, the squirrels, are all there because they have been able to find purchase in a human-manufactured environment.

More than 50% of the world’s population live in the cities now, in fully human-centric, human-created environments. That percentage will grow. Most of us today are born and grow up and live in places that have been designed for the whims and wills and desires and quirks of human beings.
And what that means is: everything we see has a meaning and a value in human terms. Everything can be assessed in that way. Is this building ugly or beautiful? Is this street layout a good idea or a bad one? Are these advertisements in excellent taste or in poor taste? There is not a thing we see that is unintended. There is not a thing we see that does not represent a thought process. We live in a symbolic landscape of objects created by humans. Except for one thing. We, ourselves, were not made.

And we forget that so completely that we need to be reminded that we have forgotten.”

“All of our judgements are invented. The war between black and white, good and evil, on which he relied is a dream. We cling to it because our symbols and our judgements give our lives structure. But we have forgotten the comfort in humility. We are not the centre of the world. The world has no centre.”

NAOMI ALDERMAN for the Happy Reader issue no: 4

Snow covered us in peaceful glee. Yes, the white encased our city of Istanbul with a sense of calm we needed. Yes, it kept us inside — and accept to relax, accept to not produce, accept to pause and not create (see, this newsletter is 4 days late).

Moreover, nature invaded our human-manufactured landscape. In unlikely ways, our spaces have been rearranged for a few days. Ephemeral installations. Like an artist’s performance, it was there only for a set of hours, only for us to taste and nimble on in the present. Shapes, textures, temperatures, everything unfolded with the days. The change wasn’t designed nor controlled by humans. Our garden levels rose half a meter. The street cats and the street dogs found shelter inside of shops. (More nature invading our careful ideas of commerce.)
We learned to look at the roofs to see the amount of snow trapped there. We learned to look above our feet, we learned to look outside. Not trapped in thoughts anymore. The whole perspective on the city has changed.
For a while, we got this escapade on a new planet, in which we put less of our mental constructions and the skies put more than their little grain of salt.

Thank you for this momentum. On behalf of all.

Originally published as part of Copious Copy — A series of letters between the Earth and you: a weekly cosmos of words about metaphysics and enlightenment, through science and spirituality, consider joining the conversation.