I tend to approach things all in one big mass. Something that gives me a lot of peace when faced with chaos is actually something I learned while constipated.. hear me out.
While enduring some intense bowel pain and sweating for about a good half an hour, it suddenly occurred to me to look up ways to relieve the pain. I figured even if it didn’t actually do anything, the process of trying would give me some sense of control and ease the pain a little. The “medical” websites were no help. Most suggested some kind of tea, or rubbing the stomach, or some other kind of hokey rubbish, nothing that I hadn’t already thought of nor tried. What brought the most comfort was reading the blog posts of fellow constipators(?) trying to seek some relief. One person recommended trying to visualise the area of pain. Instead of letting the pain overwhelm you, the suggestion was to try and identify, with as much accuracy as possible, the exact area of pain. And upon identification, to imagine that area of pain being concentrated into a smaller area. Not going away – this was key – but only receding into itself, and eventually being so small that it does not bother you as much. I find myself thinking about this piece of advice a lot, both on a off the toilet bowl.. our perception of pain is so much tied to our sense of control. If the metaphorical pain feels unmanageable, it seems so easy to just let it take over and overwhelm. But if one takes just the small step to acknowledge and locate the source of pain, this very act puts into motion our sense of control. And instead of feeling, you are merely observing.
I think I approach design often in the same way. All the problems and the issues that I need to solve seem to conflict with each other, and each decision I make seems to be countered by another seemingly equally important decision. Rather, what I really need is to take a second to reflect and calm down, in order to make an informed decision about my “area of pain”. Overlapping should only come after an understanding of the boundaries of the parts.
- Bathing, Again by MILLIØNS
- One-room apartment (Del Fabricar Comodo) by Cornelis Meijer, a Dutch hydraulics engineer that came to Rome in 1680 to assist in the design of the banks of the Tiber river, the diverting of the water and the draining of the Pontine marshes.
- Projectors by MILLIØNS
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