AUSTRALIAN MYTHOLOGY/SYMPFONI
The Clock Face — From Memorising to Understanding
- I used to assume that other people understood the world in the same way I did. At school, I wanted to understand why something worked and how it connected with other things. But I also heard answers that repeated the textbook word for word. I began to distinguish between memorising a text and understanding its meaning.
- I use a clock face to illustrate this difference. It has 360 degrees and 60 minute marks. Let us imagine that each mark represents one area of knowledge needed to understand life. I am not claiming that reality consists of exactly sixty laws.
- An expert may understand one area very well. Even knowledge recognised by a Nobel Prize does not mean knowing the whole clock face. A deep understanding of one subject does not guarantee an understanding of its connections with all the others.
- That is why I ask not only, “What do we know?” but also, “How does this knowledge connect with other knowledge? Under what conditions does it apply? What consequences does its application produce?” Observing those consequences helps us test our understanding.
- In my model of the biological computer, I speak of logical and emotional processes, temporary memory, and a storehouse of experiences. These are my metaphors. Information can fade, while some experiences remain with me for decades. This does not mean that every emotional memory is complete, unchanging, or stored outside the brain.
- Memorising alone does not guarantee understanding. Forgetting alone does not prove a lack of understanding. I want to consider whether a person can explain a subject in their own words, recognise its connections, and apply their knowledge in a new situation.
- I compare life to a school whose final class we do not know. We may be advanced in one subject and only beginning in another. This applies to me as well.
- A difference in present understanding does not mean a difference in a person’s worth or a limit to their future possibilities. The clock face is intended to help us broaden our understanding and notice what we do not yet see.
Australia Mythology — Australia Symphony
Our Surroundings and Our Sense of Belonging
The clock face is a way of looking beyond one aspect of reality. A station is more than a structure made of stone, metal and connections. It is also a place that can influence how people feel and behave.
1. A Metro Station: A Palace or a Neglected Space
Consider the contrast between the grand stations of the Moscow Metro and the worn or littered stations associated with the New York subway.
Some Moscow stations resemble palaces for the people, with chandeliers, ceiling paintings, ornaments and carefully chosen colours. A beautiful, well-maintained station can communicate: “This place belongs to you. You matter. Please help care for it.”
A station marked by litter, damaged surfaces and neglect can communicate something very different. A person may begin the day feeling that neither the place nor the people using it matter very much.
This is not a description of every station in either city. It is a contrast between two experiences of a shared space.
Architecture, maintenance and behaviour are connected. People influence their surroundings, and their surroundings can influence them.
2. A Country as Our Shared Home
When I see rubbish scattered along Australian roads, I wonder whether we recognise the land around us as our home. Throwing something out of a car removes it from our private space, but leaves it in our shared space.
I contrast this with the clean streets, parks and railway stations I associate with Polish towns. The image of a mother walking peacefully with her child late at night also represents something important to me: a shared place experienced as welcoming and safe.
These observations do not describe every place or every person. They illustrate the relationship I want to explore between belonging, care and responsibility.
In the metaphor of life as a school, caring for shared space is one subject we continue to learn. Leaving rubbish behind is a behaviour to examine, not a measure of a person’s entire worth.
The question is not only, “Who will clean this?”
It is also, “Do I recognise this place as part of my home?”
This is the connection I want the clock face to reveal: the physical surroundings, the emotional experience and our actions are parts of the same situation.
