*WARNING: THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS EXCESSIVE USE OF THE WORD ‘THINK’

Second week, fourth class, one common thread; the relationship between thinking and doing. it was something that arose for discussion in the very first class, and something that certainly  did reside within me. I think, I ponder, I wonder – I am only human. From the famous words of Descartes, “I think, therefore I am”. But what about DOING? What if, instead, the philosophy was I think, therefore I can.

Life tends to distract and deter the relationship between your thoughts and your actions. We internalize everything, and more often than not we never actually actively or outwardly express those internal thought patterns by acting. Within the thought of thinking, this class insofar, has provoked the importance of thinking about your thinking. In a thought of thinking, we can think about how we think. Perhaps then, we can begin to better understand our thoughts and ultimately the transformation of those thoughts into an action, or even to better understand the actions and existence of our surroundings. We think about ‘things’ all day, everyday, but do we ever actually stop and think about the difference between what those things are, what they do, and what they mean beyond any relation to our own existence?

My bedroom door overlooks Melbourne’s city skyline, at nighttime it is a stunning silhouette ignited by pretty lights. Though, I am now beginning to look at the view and see an optical explosion in the sky of all the bits and pieces that make-up the intricate existence of what I see. I’ve never thought of it as more than just a pretty view that no doubt contributes to the amount of rent I’m paying per month… but, apparently there’s a lot more to it.

Another week, another Media Studio, and another lesson learnt. I sit there in class and soak up everything that is being said. It might not look like it, as I aimlessly twirl my pen and gaze off into the distance, that is the four black walls that cage us, but I am drawing in the information and thinking about it. Thinking. Now that’s something that we don’t think about all that often, but it is exactly that which we were asked to think about today. Why do we think what we do? How do we know what we know? How many limitations are our thought patterns constrained by? and why?

It’s in those thoughts, within the four black walls that make the box we sit within, that you begin to realise that is exactly how we think about every single thing on a day-to-day, minute-to-minute basis; We always think in the confinements of an internal ‘black box’.

From this, it became clear to see the importance of not reaching to the first step as meaning. More often than not we only ever define a ‘thing’ based on its purpose for us; we think for the thing rather than thinking as the thing.

This was reiterated in Week One’s reading: ‘Ontography. Revealing the Rich Variety of Being’, where the nature of thinking, objects, and life overall, is anything but broken down, but instead a continuous flow in an outward reach. Society has flourished and advanced at rapid lengths but with “an obsession with simple explanations”.

…Ontography can take the form of a compendium, a record of things juxtaposed to demonstrate their overlap and imply interaction through collocation…

Before now, I had no idea what an Ontograph was. I had no idea that it was a tool to flesh out the existence of anything and everything, where “a particular configuration is celebrated merely on the basis of existence” – how great is that; a grain of sugar from your morning cup of coffee, a lighter used to light your cigarette that you had with your morning coffee, or even the button you press to wait for a signal to cross the road while you sip your coffee and puff your smoke… all those ‘simple’ things suddenly exist as their own. We never think that they exist as their own entity, or that without those things existing as their own we wouldn’t be enjoying those seemingly simple and routine pleasures.

We live in an anthropocentric universe, where we have the ‘luxury’ of things thinking for us instead of us thinking about what things actually are. We are selective beings and we can’t notice everything, but when we try and begin to, it is evident just how intricately intwined this universe, and everything that exists within it, actually is.

For the last 5 years of my academic journey I have been eagerly waiting for my ‘last first day’. Yes, without any shame, I have been anticipating the end of University. That’s not to say that I do not enjoy educating myself in a fruitful environment full of uplifting inspiration to even the not-so-desirable and seemingly endless deadlines. However, I’m ready to grab my degree (excuse the slang but, I’m not a graduate just yet!) by the balls and, well, play some ball! As a student, it is easy to feel like you’re constantly a benchwarmer – your socks are pulled up high and you’re ready to put all that late-night training into some 5th-gear action on the court in front of all the big guys… Alas, reality sinks in and the ‘big guys’ are your parents in that god-awful tracksuit cheering you on as you run circles around them with one final and rather rusty training wheel, scratching to come off!

Okay, okay – it’s not THAT bad. But, my point is, that the iconic ‘last first day’ is TODAY (please hold your applause until the end) and the itch is certainly itching to just DO STUFF – no more dribbling (for the sake of previous metaphor – stagnantly dribbling the ball. However, boring lectures may be subject to saliva down my chin). Sure, University supplies you with a constant list of things to DO but as the end peers closer, you begin to realise just how much you thought about doing things but never did; “I’m going to start my assignment prior to the week that it’s due”, “I’m going to read all my readings before class”, “I’m going to participate more in class discussions”. It is so easy to fall into the category of ‘procrastinator’ rather than ‘student’, and I have no qualms of admitting that as I certainly know that I haven’t been the only one.

Which brings me to the enlightenment ignited within on my blissful ‘last first day’. Alarm goes off at 7:30 a.m. and I roll in every direction on every angle of my bed until I am reluctantly forced with no other choice than to reveal myself to the world. I get to class at 9:30 a.m. and not a minute earlier as I don’t want to look too keen… because lets be honest, I wasn’t. I’m confused because I didn’t have the luxury of even choosing this class time, but I am slowly retreating my fist from the air to the timetabling gods that had stricken me to a 9:30 start – classic self-pity of a uni student, I’ll grab the tissue from you later! Not only that, but FIVE. WHOLE. CONTACT. HOURS. In a 168 hour week, it seems a bit extravagant, hey? I mean, I have things to do! (*This post may contain traces of sarcasm). Nonetheless, it was a concept that was certainly foreign to me and I had no idea what to expect from this thing they call a ‘studio’.

By the end of class, I learnt what a studio is but also the importance of thinking about things and, wait for it… actually DOING those things that you think about. It’s something that I’ve always known, but have only ever just thought about – how ironic! The benefits and use of studio learning is that it is a space where I can confront what it is that I don’t know, but what does matter, to then be able to learn and apply it to create something.

In reflection, my last first day is my first last day of ‘just thinking’ and the beginning of DOING.