The View From HereDavey Spens - 15 Nov 2010
The Sainsbury’s till receipt on my desk reads: Radox Shower gel, Taste the Difference Orange Juice w/ juicy bits, Ben and Jerry’s Baked Alaska, Pomodoro Tomatoes. The till receipt beneath it is from the in-store Starbucks. It has two entries – a skinny Cappuccino and Chai Tea Latte. The line along the bottom tells me that we have over five thousand Nectar points. Accumulating Nectar Points make me happy. Erin says that the love of Nectar Points is the root of evil.
Last month I saw a photograph of the rescued Chilean miners in a hospital. They were all wearing dark glasses because, after seventy days spent 2074 feet below ground, the light was too bright for their eyes. It got me thinking about the things I’ve seen in the last seventy days.
Most days, I sit at my desk in the room I share with our cat and his litter tray. I have a computer screen that I look at, a lot, but outside my window there is a street and a tower block, and though most of the time nothing much happens, I have seen a kid try to steal a bike, a car accident and a Police Helicopter. I can’t help thinking that if I lived somewhere else I would have more exciting things to look at. If I lived on a oil rig, I should imagine that instead of seeing people walking their dogs I would see people in boiler suits, I would see lots of futuristic metal machines, and plenty of dials and digital screens. If I worked in a field, I would see tall grass and reeds. If I looked about carefully I might see a grasshopper and if I was very lucky, a rabbit. Whether I like it or not my view of the world is coloured by my desk with the computer and the window that looks out onto my street. My worldview, whatever it is, is shaped by the location of my desk. The miners spent seventy days in the earth, and it’s no surprise when they emerged they talked about existential things, some had Bible verses written on their T-shirts – they had been contemplating a world beyond the world in which they were living. And so I imagine that if I did live on an Oil Rig, I might come to conclusion that one day all human life will exist in space stations orbiting the earth. If I lived in a field, I might find myself shunning deodorants and hair products and becoming more and more in-tune with the natural world.
This discovery has prompted me to question my surroundings. If I continue to the read The Guardian every day will I lose my ability to enjoy a Big Mac? Will I start to sneer at people who don’t reuse carrier bags? If I continue to watch X Factor will I start to pick up expressions like ‘A million percent yes,’ ‘You need to put your stamp on it,’ and ‘if you sung like this two thousand years ago people would have stoned you.’ Their underground home had affected the Chilean miners’ vision. They were desensitized to dark and sensitized to light. Where we spend our time affects our vision. If there was a shot of me sitting in a hospital, after I’d been ‘rescued’ from my cave I’d have to wear sunglasses too, because I’ve become horribly blind to some things and sensitized to others. I’ve become accustomed to flying in airplanes five times a year. I have become desensitized to the word ‘love’ because I use it everyday. I have become accustomed to saying the words ‘sidewalk’ and ‘fries’ in everyday speech. I have become desensitized to sex scandals, cheating partners, divorce and people crying on TV. I have become accustomed to buying an album with one click of a mouse and only listening to it twice, and desensitized to starving children in charity advertisements. I have become accustomed to grey areas and desensitized to grace. There are also things I have become sensitized too. There are things that make me wince. I reach for my sunglasses, because they are too bright, or too offensive. Like grief, and kindness.