Tuesday, May 19, 2009

levels of connections & paper accordians



I was thinking over the whole concept of connections, regarding humans and their daily relation to each other. Every day we are coming across and inadvertently meeting hundreds, possibly thousands of other humans, but in each case our relation to each other varies.
I came up with a little set of models to demonstrate my point.

In the first image, we see our paths in life crossing each other, like as to a grid, but while they pass and overlap, they do not connect. They simply keep running their course and life to wherever they feel it necessary, and this in effect is a model of the people you might see in the grocery store, down the road, the driver in front of you; sharing a tiny portion or time frame of your life, yet not essentially. These are the people you meet every day on the street. It is the path of strangers.

The second would be that of acquaintances. These strips of paper or lines pass each other and intertwine, but only to a certain extent - perhaps only folding over each other once or twice-fold and very little beyond that, maintaining their original route. It is the relationship of the person you might 'know' only for convenience or friendliness' sake, or perhaps an individual you have not had opportunity or initiative to become acquainted with beyond mere surface level.

And the third relationship model would be that of friendship, in which case the lines or paper strips have indeed travelled, intertwined, and are folding over each other again and again ceaselessly to create something truly tangible and beautiful, like a paper accordion.

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