The Transformity of Lines

Angela Tan

A material of the non-material. Materialization of the matter. A matter-ful dissonance between the stages of geometry and our linear connections with animals, nature, and earth. A force of perception and a peculiar character (lines as symbolic forms of measurements) in the abstractions of illusions and control. I offer three proposals of a single line's variations as 

a metaphysical androgynous object in its usages and dualistic portrayal of greater meanings to debunk reification. 

  1. I see blurred shadows as ontological predicaments fractured and refracted along the swimming pool floor—the lines as a galactic concept and my body as a vessel. Manipulated and ambiguously fluid the outlined tiles mould themselves with my every move and are resistant to their forms as lines. They relish and distort the boundaries between the life and death in an elative pas de deux. 

  2. As I walk further away, I see the buildings and blocks shrink to a minuscule representation of my home. The shapes and hard edges of the lined objects and people populate the area. My home, my family, is a web of connections and rules threaded between our societal maneuverings in exchange for a strip of my identity. Intricate intertwining of 21,570,000,000 results per second, and the fabrics of my thoughts are an artificial weave of desire, a bacterial infection of my stream of beliefs. 

  3. I feel a commanding force of reckoning as I labouriously work up the hill, a goal or an objective, and labouriously fail. Through human suffering, we repent, learn, and grow. In this cycle, my journey is a border, a decoration of my dread brought to reality. It has power in the subtle seduction of belief and action; a fragile contrast between the alive and the deceased. 

We believe that lines are concrete and also malleable in its dimensions. However, they are incorporated as part of our daily lives, whether silently conjuring in the backgrounds, or the thread tugging the depths of our minds. We disguise this holistic entity, a manifestation of the mind and will in its being and rhythmic beating as a line, uniform in its planning through its consequences of possibilities. 

I pull my pencil downwards; therefore, it is a line. I pull my pencil downwards in a circular manner; therefore, it is a union, a circular epiphany of hope in the heart of darkness.

Chinese calligraphy & painting. Chinese Calligraphy, Chinese Painting Art, Painting of Chinese. (n.d.). Retrieved July 26, 2022, from https://www.topchinatravel.com/china-guide/chinese-calligraphy-painting/

Angela Tan is a student attending York House School interested in the meta-cognition of epistemology and 16th-century literature. Her works on poetry and prose are recognized by Janus Unbound, a journal of critical studies based in the Memorial University of Newfoundland, and the Greyhound Journal. She enjoys attending and participating in lectures worldwide and in her community. She founded a philosophy club at school to reconstruct the student's view on education. She believes that communication and articulate expression of opinion while approaching challenging ideas are tactful and valuable skills to possess, no matter the subject or epoch. Angela aims to work with the curriculum in the future and the present education system to integrate a corporeal learning experience based on values, autonomy of expression, and intellectual craftsmanship.

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