The first time I walked past, I misread the sign. Think Safely instead of Think Safety. Which got me thinking about the difference, and what it means to post this warning (command?) on a fence.
If the sign commands me to think safely, then I have already failed to comply. Questions are inherently dangerous, risky, unpredictable. That, and I had to kneel down in the middle of the street to snap this photograph.
Safety is a noun instead of an adverb, so what does it mean to think safety? Obsessing every second over traffic signals, carrying mace in my messenger bag, calculating the probability of a crane dropping a steel beam on my head? Practicing the fire drills and stocking up on duct tape? Driving instead of flying? There is a paradox here. You have to think danger in order to think safety. And the more danger you perceive, the less safe you feel.
And then there is the fence. Why do we always feel safe when we are locked out? Or when someone else is locked in? When spaces and streets are unavailable? Is the sign sending a secret message to think fence?
But most important - at least for me - is why I misread the sign at all. What unconscious fear can project its own alphabet, spelling the very commands I resist most?
Comments (5)
Hi Karrie, your blog is fantastic.
Fences interest me too. Have you ever been to the UK? In town, you can go to any residential street and find parallel lines of 6ft high wooden fences segregating the gardens of our terraced brick houses, and ensuring you can't even see your neighbour.
If you leave the urban behind you will find neatly clipped lines of green hedgerows marking out rectangular rural territories, spaces filled with crops or grazing animals.
And if you make it as far as the coast, you'll find a geographical explanation for the origins of the island mentality.
How does it work with imaginary national borders?
Posted by Dan | July 18, 2004 4:22 AM
Posted on July 18, 2004 04:22
Wonderful delineation of the paradoxes here.
Posted by Peggy Murdock | July 18, 2004 3:24 PM
Posted on July 18, 2004 15:24
The easiest way to figure the cost of living is to take your income and
add ten percent.
paxil
Posted by paxil | July 24, 2004 7:34 PM
Posted on July 24, 2004 19:34
i must be afraid of saftey as well, because I read "THINK SAFELY" from your photo. But the advice made me feel not so much commanded as passively calm. Think safely. Not, "Think safe thoughts", but rather, in this area, you can feel safe to think. Think whatever you like/want/need/deisre/hate/fear...you are safe.
"THINK SAFELY"
i feel this way on your blog.
thanks,
v
Posted by v | August 2, 2004 2:15 AM
Posted on August 2, 2004 02:15
If you leave the urban behind you will find neatly clipped lines of green hedgerows marking out rectangular rural territories, spaces filled with crops or grazing animals.
Wow, it's funny!
Posted by Jim | August 3, 2004 8:09 AM
Posted on August 3, 2004 08:09