tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post5914377466055253734..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: Different Places, Different ThoughtsAssistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-2758883382210717202019-11-03T12:31:13.332-05:002019-11-03T12:31:13.332-05:00Thank you. You always elevate the discussion.Thank you. You always elevate the discussion.Assistant Village Idiothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-83420068602987905142019-11-03T12:11:10.061-05:002019-11-03T12:11:10.061-05:00This is what the ancients called genius loci or sp...This is what the ancients called genius loci or spirit of place. They of course thought that all places had a tutelary or guardian spirit, and that this spirit could at times converse with a human, as when the spirit of the Tiber spoke with Aeneas. As the common understanding of the world grew more secular, the phrase "spirit of place" became psychological, and the term "sense of place" began to supplant it about fifty years ago. In any case, I think it is obvious that certain environments are conducive to certain types of thoughts. The interiors of stores are designed to make us think how much better we would be if we bought the things in those stores. Nightclubs are designed to make us think that it is glamorous to get drunk in a deafening cacophony. Even stone cold atheists will admit to a momentary intimation of the divine when they step into cathedral.<br /><br />The agreeable melancholy of a walk though an autumn woods may require some cultural conditioning to appreciate, but it seems to me that the experience naturally directs a sensitive mind into certain channels. The dead leaves underfoot; the hint of winter in the air; the ephemeral but exquisite beauty of the scene. I think I have mentioned that I am a native of the north who has been thirty years resident in Texas, and the northern fall is one thing I still very much miss. After I'd lived here some years, I took some students on a field trip to the Ozarks. It was October and the woods looked and smelled like the woods of western New York in September. It made me cry. Not copiously, but in a muted and autumnal way. I think the spirt of that place had said something to me.<br /><br />I became a geographer because I am very sensitive to my environment. There are many landscapes that can inspire what C. S. Lewis described as "longing." They give at least some of us a foretaste of better things to come. There are other landscapes that fill me with what David Bentley Hart called (I think) "metaphysical despair." They seem to be possessed by an evil spirit of place.JMSmithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14502377102987849260noreply@blogger.com