On openings and closings, choice and change

From Brian Massumi, via Mary Zournazi, via Prof Liz Smythe

[su_quote]…in every situation there are any number of levels of organisation and tendencies in play, in cooperation with each other or at cross-purposes. The way all the elements interrelate is so complex that it isn’t necessarily comprehensible in one go. There’s always a sort of vagueness surrounding the situation, an uncertainty about where you might be able to go, and what you might be able to do once you exit that particular context. This uncertainty can actually be empowering – once you realise that it gives you a margin of manoeuvrability and you focus on that, rather than on projecting success or failure. It gives you the feeling that there is always an opening to experience, to try and see. This brings a sense of potential to the situation. The present’s ‘boundary condition’, to borrow a phrase from science, is never a closed door. It is an open threshold – a threshold of potential. You are only ever in the present in passing. If you look at it that way you don’t feel boxed in by it, no matter what its horrors, and no matter what, rationally, you expect will come. You may not reach the end of the trail but at least there is a next step. The question of which next step to take is a lot less intimidating than how to reach a far-off goal in a distant future where all our problems will finally be solved (pp.211-212).[/su_quote]

Zournazi, M. (2002). Hope. New philosophies for change. Annandale, NSW, Austalia: Pluto Press.