If a person is shipwrecked and ends up on a deserted island, s/he needs to build 3 houses in order to feel human and acquire an identity.
House #1 will be the place for the shipwreck to live.
House #2 will be the church or the club (depending on whether the shipwrecked person is religious) that s/he will visit it every Sunday or Saturday.
And what purpose will House #3 serve?
This is the Other house, near which we don’t come close.
Can be visualized as 3 levels: our house = level zero, church = higher level, Other = either lower level (-1) or another axis in 2D world. Actually both.
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I had no doubt el would guess immediately what it is. 🙂
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Wait, does it mean you would build only 2 houses?
Today on news:
U.S. diplomat named as Ryan Christopher Fogle was arrested last night. Russia claim he was attempting to recruit a Russian secret services official. Letter allegedly found on him offers agents $1million per year to defect. U.S. ambassador to be summoned to Russian foreign ministry to explain.
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Well I would change “House 2” in to a bar/restaurant. Even though I’m the only customer and would do all the cooking, I would need a place to feel like I was “going out.”
And then for me, I would make House 3 would be something that felt like I was engaging in “culture.” Maybe some sort of library/place to write. If there was a few people with me, then I would definitely make House 3 in to a school. f I was alone, I would maybe make an art museum type of thing–a place where I would put all the beautiful things I was finding. Maybe I would take up sand art or something. But I would need something that made me remember that my life was more than trying to survive the elements.
Fun question! 🙂
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For his/her conceivable visitors.
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A workshop.
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I was going to say a shop/gallery where food could be stored and interesting things found on the island shown. Going there would be like ‘going out’.
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House 3 would definitely be a place where he can pay and have sex. A prostitute’s place. Well, this is how life works. Pleasure always holds a upper hand in human life.
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It’s a deserted island. There is nobody to have sex with. 🙂
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This is an old Jewish joke. A Jew is on a deserted island and spends years building to synagogues. When he is rescued they ask him why he needed to and he points to one and says: “That one I don’t go to.”
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In other words, to have community you must have anti-community.
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To expand a bit, the first house would be to eat, sleep and relax in.
The other two would both be workshops, one for more cerebral/artistic/fun things and the other for more practical things (furniture, a boat to get off the island etc).
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A conservatory garden and lab. I could study the species on the island and cultivate my own garden for scientific and aesthetic purposes.
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I would have said the other house was for your job.
OT: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas/2013/05/14/72444026-rusia-detiene-a-un-presunto-agente-de-la-cia
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The Russians will now have food for their COLD War narrative for years to come. 🙂
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House 1 is the id, House 2 the super-ego, House 3 must be the ego: some sort of Akademia.
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That’s the most interesting response of all.
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Here the author talks of his experiences as a child in the colonial world of the Dutch East Indies, being put in work camp by the Japanese during WW2 and anti-Muslim racism in the Netherlands today.
I found interesting his classification of Exploitation racism vs Competition racism, and how the capitalist system contributes to racism. Also, the comment is unusual:
When it became politically incorrect to speak of non-whites as inferiors, the discourse amongst those with the same need to differentiate for validation was to speak of their own special excellence. It isn’t that The Others are inferior but that WE are superior. Arguments for American Exceptionalism have become possible that side-step the reality that they are essentially racist.
http://www.juancole.com/2013/05/sanctification-jealousy-wertheim.html
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Of course, the correct answer is that House #3 will be the house that the shipwreck will never visit in order to create an Other to his or her own identity. 🙂
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Excellent point. I find it interesting that a general trend in shamanism is the obligation to visit “the other”. I think it’s a necessary part of the mind-expanding agenda of shamanism that for a while one must live the life of the “opposite” sex, that is adopting their clothing, mind and mannerisms.
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I guess I would build a dog house and try to domesticate a coyote.
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Or some other creature…any creature really
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