22 November 2008

Among things I interact with on a daily basis are: a blue compass; a stamp with a bird on it; a purple duck; a round thing with a flame on it; a jar of ink with a pen next to it; a desktop flip-calendar; a silhouette of a ninja kicking the air; a picture of a sunset behind a palm tree; a yellow and blue-ish purple truck; a green leaf; a series of colored squares with different letters on them; etc.

These are all computer icons for different software applications I use on my Mac. Each of these things mean something to me, and maybe some of them for you, too. What’s interesting to think about is how easy it is for us to put trust in these images.

For example, I approach the purple duck trusting that he will tell me if anyone else is online that I might want to talk to, and he will also tell others that I am online. 

The ninja takes me to a place where I have been collecting things. All sorts of things. Quotes. Archives of websites. Serial numbers. Codes and passwords. PDFs.

And so forth with the compass, the flame, the truck, the leaf, the colored squares, etc. It’s interesting that we can put a sort of faith in these abstractions. And we do this because we know that through them we will be ‘transported’ from one place to another. A place beyond themselves. They are small pictures of something greater than themselves.