Flexing the Blur
Adventures in Multiplicity
It occurs to me relationships are momentary lapses. Pet a dog, and it shifts my alert self. Watch a cat loll in my lap, as I am right now, with a dribble of drool on her lip, and the alert self fogs. Happens all the time.
I see these simple examples of relationships as a sense of space within empathy. It’s not an oxytocin cloud; it’s alive — life as multiple, a living blur, as in “I am all ablur.” What is that?
In a recent post I alluded to something similar. Blur exists at the threshold of capacity to intake data and parse it as information. But, blur’s not abstract like that. It’s different from noise. Blur’s a real process of engagement— it’s flexible, as in ‘can be flexed’. Like exercise, it’s something.
I also suggested one way to deal with increased information is to generate bigger (or varied sized) sets where lots of ‘things’ can rest in blur. Where we can take it easy in the midst of information. The words, ‘family’, ‘nation’, ‘god’ do this — they aggregate overlapping concepts. Imagination as a resource for sensemaking does this. As does a sense of community.
The image above is of a pleurobranch, or a shell-less shellfish. Many pleurobranchs are chameleon and can vary their own shape, color, texture. (Honestly, I had a vague idea of a creature that does what it does because of some past encounter and I Googled it to find out its name, get a definition and to share a great picture.) Beyond a metaphor for blur, a pleurobranch is also new bit of knowledge. I’d bet few if any reading this have held one. So, we access them through imagination, story and a slight sense of mutual condition. They are things that we exist in relation to on the planet. That’s about it. So, there’s another blur — it’s also real.
If blur is real, if I am as much blur, the ‘place’ between self and context’, as a continent self, what does blur do to concepts of me and world. If shapeshifting is not metaphorical trope but is a constant and flexible state what does that say about empiricism, my need to know, and my willingness to be bounded by knowledge as wholly different from blur? Even more, if the empire of empiricism is no longer the shell that surrounds me (I see it as the fear of the empire builder) and instead is a shell tucked in my pocket, does that mean in the flux, or blurred boundary I no longer make sense; should I fear that? Does all information then flood in and render me formless? Does the sublime finally subsume me?
I don’t think so. In fact, I know the answer is No.
Because the answer is No it is possible to say Yes to design, to indeterminate social negotiation, to the creation of insight, to human purpose in flux. Because I live in this state I know it is possible to “flex flux”, to make it a strength, to add that strength to a set of purposes in flux. It is possible to know “iteration” is just things + time, or things + negotiated usefulness— things + blur.
Because I can let the cat go up on the desk and over to the bed, and I can hear her make a low meow before she falls to sleep; because of life I can easily see my self as a thing, a process of sustained, purposeful and contained encounters with life. That’s about it. By contrast, I think in our definitions of knowledge being often comes motive — In order to exist I must think. However, once thought releases to body and embraces space and relationship as a determinant of purpose I can authentically bring my small plus (+) sign to every encounter, as in I am me+: . I am not a motive. That’s just so much product thinking. I am a process. I am alive.
Along with that (little) shell, in my pocket is only a sense of shared purpose and a hello. With just these connective, additive ways of engaging and flexing blur, my life with our cat and dogs, my relationships with my wife, friends, work partners and the world takes care of me+ and itself.
