On my journey to work awhile ago, I spotted a young boy getting in the back of a car. His Dad having assured that he was safely in the back seat returned to his house to close the gate. I was left wondering why? If he left, the gate open, the world wouldn't end and creatures from a Lovecraft inspired dimension would not invade this universe.
This seemingly irrelevant action set my mind racing and since then, I have been contemplating the role of gates, fences, doors, keyholes, windows and other entrance/exit points and facilitators of such actions in our lives. Why are they so important both in our day to day existences and in the cultural products we absorb?
Let's think about this rationally... Gates are entrances and exits. Most front gates to houses tend to be unlocked or are simply closed and held in place with some kind of catch. Whether they are open or closed bears no relation to issues of safety or property protection because let's face it, you don't need a key to unlock them. So the act of closing a gate when we leave provides a more symbolic role than useful function. By closing a front gate if it is our own, we are essentially marking a point of change. On that side of the gate is my personal life mediated by the conditions I create and my own values and those of my value. On the other side of the gate, I am faced with the realities of society, bad drivers/cyclists, obnoxious and lovely people, challenges that I may surmount or they may overwhelm me. But upon returning to the sight of that front gate, I can if I am feeling strong shut down all thoughts of the outside world by closing that gate. Locked gates and fences are barriers and they do serve the function of security and marking territory. On a farm, they stop animals from straying, potentially into dangerous situations.
Now as I approach the front door to my house, I pull out my keys. It intrigues me that we can have one or more doors. Some people have porches, so they have to let themselves into that door first before using a second or third key to let themselves into the final door, which provides entrance to the inner sanctum. The space that helps to define us. Consider the act of unlocking, a clockwise or anti-clockwise circulatory motion. Then a click or a discernible noise that releases the door. Now doors are as varied as the keys that penetrate their locks. Some are wooden, others are made of metal. Doors are also used as powerful metaphors for understanding. Regularly, people make reference to 'opening doors' as a means of revealing secrets. When you think of horror films, quite often the fear is generated not so much by what lurks behind the door as our sense of anticipation, fear and suspense about what lurks behind the door. An empty space can be as terrifying as a space containing some blood soaked genetic throwback. Aldous Huxley took the doors metaphor to the next logical stage, opening 'the doors of perception' involved the consummation of mescaline and other substances to unlock the secrets of the psyche. So keys do not always have to be inanimate objects made of metal.
Doors and windows too as they can also be used as entrances and exits are potent symbols of separation and distance. It is necessary to break them open or to stare through them to learn or to experience new sensations. Ultimately, not knowing 'what goes on behind closed doors' is probably the most potent metaphor for our lack of understanding of our ultimate fate and indeed of many other important issues. Human beings know nothing but they strive towards knowledge and it will find them, whether they hide from it or not.
Barry Watt - 25th May 2013
Afterword
'The Doors of Perception' by Aldous Huxley is recommended reading for anyone who wants to understand how drugs and hallucinatory substances alter how we view the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment