Reflections 5th April.

Finding the ideas that are lying around

“Walls look like order; but more often than not, a wall stands at the precise fulcrum of an imbalance in society. Most walls are only necessary as a means of defending the resources of those who have them from those who lack them. In this way, though they present themselves as mechanisms of security, they are in fact tools of oppression.”

Nick Hayes, The Book of Trespass: Crossing the Lines that Divide Us

Walls, like borders, are only stories.

There is nothing to stop us from crossing a line or climbing a wall other than the story we tell ourselves about it. The system that says what’s behind the wall is mine, whilst I remain perfectly free to access what is on your side, has been given a veneer of respectability by the idea of a rules-based order, even though access to that order has always been a matter of privilege.

And then, around every ten generations or so, somebody comes along and rearranges the walls. Energetic beginnings harden into complex, affluent systems. Elites consolidat…