Borders

Artists are often instructed that “there are no lines in nature.”  Nevertheless, most art does contain lines, which we easily interpret as nature. We have a facility to construct imaginary boundaries which are very useful to us. 

Some cultures – mostly those with a sense of private property – construct territorial lines over every clod of dirt or distant mountain. They claim to control the land thus enclosed, even though obviously sun, sky, light, sound, air, microbes, and the very molecules and atoms of which matter is composed ignore those imaginary boundaries entirely.

Ah _ but laws and people? There we believe we are on firmer ground. Inside or outside? What is allowed? What is forbidden? Citizen or foreigner? If borders are secure, we believe, we are secure and all will be well. 

Except that _ well _ things tend to be fluid. Of course armies can change map colors. But there are lots of invisible borders between, say, rich and poor, educated and ignorant, believers and infidels, the list goes on. And all those borders exist – like lines for an artist – only in the minds of those who think they see them. 

As in many human conditions, of course, what we imagine is often more important than what actually exists. Beyond that, we can elevate such trifles to cosmic levels and assume that by doing so all will be well. 

But we may be in for a big shock.