What does one mean by ‘forgetting’?
How one is ‘anchored’ in an experience and is this tendency of anchoring
required or not? Perhaps this question becomes extremely relevant in
contemporary times than every before – or at least in an environment where one
is inflicted with the experience of constant change.
There are many components to develop
the experience of remaining anchored - to a value, or a person or an object or
an environment or ultimately to one’s life. These components retrospectively
are now expressed when one faces today’s environment of feeling ‘placeless’.
Anchoring is formed in an
environment of repeated actions – these actions one may have observed from
previous generations or are handed down to the individual and one is instructed
or guided to perform these actions because they are believed to give favourable
results. Rituals, routine, processes of agriculture, food, clothing, cultural
traits, gender roles, anything can be made repetitive (provided some fruitful
value is achieved on the way). Repeated actions, over a period of time get
reviewed by the individual, one understands their importance and as one
practices these actions, they become deeply ingrained in our consciousness.
Thus, the journey of an external event to making its presence feel (in terms of
its value/ significance) in our consciousness requires repetition/ recitation/
practice of doing etc. Subsequently, our perception changes. This is also the
way in which our ‘memory’ gets created or we refer back to memory to decide on
the action to be undertaken in contemporary context.
Anchoring is formed because of a particular
sequence of action – from the thought to the process of doing to make a
product. Suppose I want to take dinner. I, first, collect raw materials, wash
them or clean them or dry them. I chop them or slice them. I cook them or fry
them or boil them. I sip some of them for tasting and confirming its quality
and the feel. Then I take dishes on the table, invite my family, smile, serve
and dine together. Before starting to dine, we say a prayer, we may also drink
water first and then eat the served food. We talk, discuss, share our thoughts
and then take the dishes to the sink, clean them and that concludes the dining
activity. By repeating such acts every day, a feeling of being grounded in that
ritual of dining gets formed in my mind – so much so that the word ‘dining’
would make me remember recipes to all the people and the conversations and the
feelings that had been expressed for that activity. Hence dining, as an action –
has become something much more intimately connected to my consciousness rather
than just a function to be completed. The activity now includes feelings of
being connected with people, the aroma of the food itself, the sights, sounds,
of events happening while having dinner and a social connection formed thereby.
And hence, the importance of providing a dining place in our designs. This idea
of sequence of action can be extended to any other activity – such as going
along a fixed route to work or walking along a fixed path around a place and so
on. Any such repetitive sequence may generate a potential to include many other
dimensions of thought. Hence, one of the questions that the architect may
prefer to consider is – how can architecture assist in creating an anchored
experience in our consciousness? If ‘space’ is felt as having a
socio-cultural-spiritual dimension, then the individual has more anchored
experience of reality.
Values or world views and their
belief in it – takes a longer time to form and have them transferred across
generations. Here, the idea of anchoring is to be seen or felt as a continuum
from past to present to future – an idea of a pattern that repeats itself in
the present moment. Thus, the present is not a rupture from the past or future,
but a continuous process of transformation. Anchoring is the belief in the
experience of consciousness and not just generated because of the mind or body
existence.
As a pattern, ‘anchoring’
requires personal observation, repetition, reviewing, questioning, meditation
and synthesis as mental dimensions. Above all, ‘time’ is required to generate
such mental dimensions.
The contemporary experience is
far more different. Today, more and more of the individual’s mental space is
getting shaped by artificial intelligence presence. What we see, how we see,
how we think (perceive and imagine and conceive of experiences) are governed by
artificial intelligence’s dictates. My experiences are governed by the changing
nature and tasks enforced by AI. These tasks are of the scale of micro level,
they change fast and they are all interconnected. They require only rational
sequence of performance and every task build to give on output that has a
value. The nature of AI is fleeting, fluid, that changes tasks every day and
that compels us to adapt to such changing processes. Thus, there is little room
left for consolidation and reinforcement of repetitive action. Secondly, AI
compels to handle many tasks simultaneously as more and more things get
integrated or interconnected. This means little room for focusing on a given
activity at a time. Lastly, if the algorithm program doesn’t recognize the
socio-cultural importance of experiential dimension of “quality”, these
dimensions of human experience will be endangered in the end and what will
remain is just a rational, fleeting, fractured, fragmented , superficial mind
of the individual. A mind that is unable to focus, to condense, to pursue, to
discovery many other dimensions of experience and to transcend to spiritual
dimension. Such a fractured and fragmented experience is defining the
contemporary components of perception and conception – similar to seeing a
movie picture having multiple screen distractions to an extent that the story
becomes irrelevant and one just looses interest in believing in the story!
In the future, of all the things
we require – is the ability to generate an anchored experience that enables us
to feel the connection with people and environment.
