»…we’ll go this way…«
»No, this won’t work, let’s go back, this won’t do.«
»We’ll take the safe route, along Urša’s path. Let’s not take risks, let’s move on.«
»We won’t get so lost now, everything’s clear until Osp.«
»Yeah, wait, let me get my bearings… Yes, we’ll go down here, yes, right here—look, you can see the Karst Edge…«
»We’d have to go up at Kastelc, but that would be too demanding…«
»Straight ahead here. This part’s annoying… There are trucks here, just a segment. Let’s keep going…«
»Let’s take a shortcut…«
»Špelaaaaaaaa!!!!! We’re going this way… Špelaaaaaaaa!«
»There’s a road here… no, it’s a wall….«
*********
The search for deep time is not a walk along roads, streets, or sidewalks. It requires constant thought, navigation, and coordination.
Dimitrij says that a heel touching the ground destroys the above-ground parts of plants for up to a decade. But not all steps are the same. The first heels destroy more than the last. Are my heels the first? Would it be better to pause, to let mine be the last?
A decade. Whose decade? How long is that to a plant or an ant that just managed to avoid my heel? Time is relative, isn’t it?
Sure, Newton and his idea of absolute time have been overtaken—by time itself. Relative time. And this time does not exist without space. Hence: spacetime. If we say that space is intuitive—and time seems intuitive too—then spacetime is far less so.
How can space and time coexist, since they’re like apples and oranges??? Ash from YouTube says it’s a four-dimensional continuum, where space and time are inversely related—the more you move through space, the less time you consume. So is the ant’s decade also my decade!?
I prefer to stay with Newton and Euclid, and feel safer in a world defined by x, y, z.
Even there, it’s easy to get lost. If I added time t, a point becomes an event — and getting lost becomes infinitely more complex. There is talk about parallel universes, the breakdown of causality, and the (im)possibility of going back in time. Compared to that, getting lost during a walking seminar feels like child’s play.
»Špela, next time we’re not taking a shortcut…«
*******
Post scriptum:
Based on my walking seminar notes, Jani Pirnat wrote the following list/poem:
Up
Demanding
Place
Prominent
Point
Forward
Annoying
Marker
Section
Procession
Let’s go
Back
It won’t work
To safety
Further
Let’s dash
Let’s not take risks
Now
Getting lost
Wait
Orientation
It’s visible
Up
Demanding
Place
Prominent
Point
Forward
Annoying
Marker
Section
Procession
Let’s go
Back
It won’t work
To safety
Further
Let’s dash
Let’s not take risks
Now
Getting lost
Wait
Orientation
It’s visible
There
All clear
Špelaaa
Špelaaa
