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I took this slightly out-of-focus photograph from the verandah of my living room, four days ago and in doing so, formally began to re-establish my collection - hopefully, all is not lost.
By way of perspective, I have long suspected that one of the many benefits of living in tropical wilderness is the luxury of going barefoot. I maintain that removing the immediate protection of footwear and restoring direct contact with terra firma, with all its irregularities and unexpected anomalies, optimises one’s long-term proprioceptive interests. But more than mere exercise, an almost infinite combination of sensory variations underfoot, reverberates throughout one’s greater physiology to enunciate, in the most eloquent tones, relations with the natural environment.
The same can be said for the smörgåsbord of pheromones that infiltrate the sensory openings of Jacobson’s organ and target the limbic centres of the brain. By way of contrast and beneath an urban pair of veritable olfactory-ugg-boots, nature’s stimuli are swamped by a tidal wave of highly concentrated pollutants and chemical deodorants.
In this sense, unfettered exposure to the natural environment provides a myriad of sensations, spanning a gamut of pleasures and repugnancies. Indeed, how is one supposed to appreciate the inherent truth of a pleasurable sensation without regarding the agony and inconvenience of its equally unambiguous counterpart?
On this basis, I take some philosophical counsel from the suffering and inconvenience of my recent computer crash. Beyond the catastrophic loss of my entire data-base, save that which might be recoverable from expensive data restoration technology, my appreciation for computer technology is now balanced against my contempt for its sensational unreliability.