week 1: dérive

On Oct 3, I spoke about what the people in organization I am a part of meant to me. To figure out what to say, I referred back to the inspiration for the speech which led me into joining the organization in the first place[1]. The speaker I listened to referred to a feeling described as "the opposite of loneliness."

I primarily listened to Too Much by Sonder[2] and the album Freudian by Daniel Caesar[3]. Sonder reminded me of how I felt before I joined. Life was sweeping by and I didn't stop to connect with anyone like I have now with the people I've met in the org. The songs Get You, Best Part, and We Find Love on Freudian speak to the love I have for the org and the extremely influential people I've met there.

While reading What Screens Want, I saw the text below that reminded of one of my friends from the org.
"Things get bad when those abstractions become the terms your mind uses to consider the thing itself—you mistake the map as the territory. And it’s funny how those maps begin to mold your understanding of the world around you."

My friend had suggested I read Play to Win! by Larry Wilson [4] this past summer. And Wilson refers to maps in a strikingly similar way. Chimero describes inaccuracy in the physical world. Wilson uses maps to refer to mental, emotional maps and how people's preconceived, inaccurate perceptions of the world leads them to misinterpret the world or fail to see it objectively.

In Theory of the Dérive, the quote,
“Men can see nothing around them that is not their own image; everything speaks to them of themselves. Their very landscape is alive.”

struck me heavily as well. The tone is much more positive on people's perception of the world. People's worlds are alive with themselves. Accuracy of perception or objectivity does not matter in this quote. As an aside, when I read, "Their landscape is alive," I had a strong urge to look at one of my favorite photographs[5].

So I'm thinking again on the speech I wrote. I wrote of the impact people had on my emotional growth and how much their role in my life meant to me. But I begin to question my experiences or purpose for speaking on those experiences when these ideas of abstraction and perception vs. reality vs. how much the world is our own image/our mental maps that unconsciously overwrite the objective world swirl around in my head.

I listened to Freudian again while on this dérive. And the last song, Freudian in the album[6], suddenly struck me with its sobering tone. I still believe what I said about the people I've met being one of the most wonderful experiences I've had at UCLA, but these concepts give me an urge to ground myself in the objective experiences of the world, what's happening without me imposing myself onto it.