6 ms·

The Pandemic-Era Appeal of Labyrinths

40 points by polm23 6y ago

prewett 6y ago
I walked the labyrinth in Amiens Cathedral and I thought it mirrored the experience of the Christian life pretty well. At the beginning you quickly go from the outside towards the center (God), mirroring in the initial joy and closeness you feel after initially choosing to follow God. Then the labyrinth moves away from the center, but not too far out, as the initially high fades and you learn who God is, repent of sins, learn to serve. The next stage wanders around the edges, far from the center, mirroring the "dark night of the soul" and you wonder if you're ever going to make it back to the middle. Then, suddenly, move from the outside into the endpoint in the middle.
- zpeti 6y ago
  Jesus christ dude, this is a tech forum. Never admit you're a christian. NEVER!
  - zeveb 6y ago
    As martyrdoms go, being downvoted is pretty tolerable. Beats being shot or tortured. Heck, even missing out on job opportunities is not really that big a deal. (N.b. for those unfamiliar with the term: 'martyr' comes the Greek word μάρτυρ, meaning 'witness.' The modern secondary meaning 'suicide murderer' is … something else entirely.)
    - fouc 6y ago
      Noun. A person who is killed because of their religious or other beliefs. Verb. Kill (someone) because of their beliefs. Example: ‘she was martyred for her faith’
    - gjm11 6y ago
      I've never seen anyone downvoted here for admitting to being a Christian. (Or a Buddhist or atheist or whatever.) I have seen people, completely deservedly, get downvoted for trying to use HN as a venue for proselytism, or for denying well established scientific discoveries that happen to conflict with things they hold as religious doctrine, or for other varieties of rudeness or stupidity that would earn them downvotes whatever their reason for doing it. Incidentally, I haven't seen "martyr" used to mean "suicide murderer". I think the usual modern meaning is "person killed, or perhaps just severely persecuted, for their religion". (And then of course it gets used metaphorically to refer to any sort of actual or perceived persecution for any reason; but the underlying meaning is what I said.)
  - xamuel 6y ago
    Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. Daily reminder that although Christ taught and preached for three long years, only a few dozen pages of his verified sayings have survived. Read them, meditate on them, treasure them. "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead" (Matthew 8:22)
  - mcherm 6y ago
    Jesus Christ, dude, this is a forum for anything that good hackers would find interesting. Good hackers realize that there is a lot to learn from EVERYONE and that excluding or even just failing to listen Christians would be nearly as foolish and limiting as excluding women or those with black skin. ALWAYS stay open to learning from other people - ALWAYS!
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      I've rewritten this comment several times. It's hard to strike a good balance in intellectual conversations about topics that are central to people's core identities. If too much deference is given to belief, then conversations will inevitably end up lopsided, where it's impossible to disagree with any point without being charged with bigotry and intolerance. On the other hand, it's all too easy to burn the bridges that might allow a believer to join a discussion. And finally, there are some aspects of some beliefs that are antithetical to free inquiry, so it becomes especially hard to discuss such in a dispassionate way.
    - zpeti 6y ago
      Jesus Christ, apparently my parody style didn't work via text :(
perl4ever 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan%27s_Labyrinth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan%27s_Labyrinth
danidiaz 6y ago
An interesting (and free) book about the subject is "The Idea of the Labyrinth from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages" by Penelope Reed Doob https://www.amazon.com/Labyrinth-Classical-Antiquity-through-Middle-ebook/dp/B07SW7SNSQ/ https://www.amazon.com/Labyrinth-Classical-Antiquity-through... Sometimes it goes too far in seeing a "labyrinthine aesthetic" everywhere, but nevertheless it contains interesting information. Speaking of labyrinths, programmers are like Daedalus: they design labyrinths, only to be immured inside them. Daedalus was commissioned to build an actual labyrinth; programmers set out to build cathedrals, but then mess up. They keep reworking sections of the labyrinth even as they are lost inside, trying to straighten out the paths, render them comprehensible. But they always end up creating more twists and turns.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  > programmers are like Daedalus... they always end up creating more twists and turns Doesn't sound like what a programmer would say. No decent dev I have ever met would do any but untangle the mess[0], and given any capacity, would not create one in the first place. [0] References to theseus need not apply.
  - zentiggr 6y ago
    Well... even knowing I signed on to a project in 'sustainment' mode, I've still looked at and written up some ways to reduce the friction and complication of working with the old codebase. Even though the effort is unlikely to be put in, since the new version is in progress already.
- pier25 6y ago
  Love your metaphor about Daedalus but labyrinths have a single path compared to mazes which have multiple branching paths.
  - danidiaz 6y ago
    In Antiquity and the Middle Ages, there was something of an incongruence between literary and visual depictions of labyrinths ("The Idea of the Labyrinth" touches on this). In literary sources, the labyrinths were often "multicursal", like mazes. One can choose a wrong turn and get lost. The labyrinth at Crete is described like that. But graphical depictions are almost invariably "unicursal" for some reason. From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth "Although early Cretan coins occasionally exhibit branching (multicursal) patterns,[2] the single-path (unicursal) seven-course "Classical" design without branching or dead ends became associated with the Labyrinth on coins as early as 430 BC,[3] and similar non-branching patterns became widely used as visual representations of the Labyrinth – even though both logic and literary descriptions make it clear that the Minotaur was trapped in a complex branching maze." If the cretan Labyrinth didn't have branching paths, why would Theseus need a ball of thread to retrace his steps? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariadne#Minos_and_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariadne#Minos_and_Theseus
maxiepoo 6y ago
These pictures, especially the second one, really remind me of Jonathan Blow's puzzle game "The Witness" which I highly recommend. Very appropriate since part of the game is predicated on how playing all of these abstract puzzles warps your perception of the world around you.
jdonaldson 6y ago
When I was younger I always enjoyed mowing a ~10 acre lawn, for many of the same reasons. I believe it does encourage mindfulness. You trace a route that shrinks slightly with each pass. You come back to pretty much the same spot you were just before. The next pass I reflected on what I was thinking about in the first pass, noting the various emotions I was feeling rather than being driven by them. Eventually the field shrinks and creates small islands of uncut grass, or a turn becomes too tight to complete successfully, and you have to change your mowing strategy. I always felt it helped trigger a change in mental approach as well. Although, this all could have just been mild heat stroke, who knows?

40 points by polm23 6y ago

I walked the labyrinth in Amiens Cathedral and I thought it mirrored the experience of the Christian life pretty well. At the beginning you quickly go from the outside towards the center (God), mirroring in the initial joy and closeness you feel after initially choosing to follow God. Then the labyrinth moves away from the center, but not too far out, as the initially high fades and you learn who God is, repent of sins, learn to serve. The next stage wanders around the edges, far from the center, mirroring the "dark night of the soul" and you wonder if you're ever going to make it back to the middle. Then, suddenly, move from the outside into the endpoint in the middle.

zpeti 6y ago
Jesus christ dude, this is a tech forum. Never admit you're a christian. NEVER!
- zeveb 6y ago
  As martyrdoms go, being downvoted is pretty tolerable. Beats being shot or tortured. Heck, even missing out on job opportunities is not really that big a deal. (N.b. for those unfamiliar with the term: 'martyr' comes the Greek word μάρτυρ, meaning 'witness.' The modern secondary meaning 'suicide murderer' is … something else entirely.)
  - fouc 6y ago
    Noun. A person who is killed because of their religious or other beliefs. Verb. Kill (someone) because of their beliefs. Example: ‘she was martyred for her faith’
  - gjm11 6y ago
    I've never seen anyone downvoted here for admitting to being a Christian. (Or a Buddhist or atheist or whatever.) I have seen people, completely deservedly, get downvoted for trying to use HN as a venue for proselytism, or for denying well established scientific discoveries that happen to conflict with things they hold as religious doctrine, or for other varieties of rudeness or stupidity that would earn them downvotes whatever their reason for doing it. Incidentally, I haven't seen "martyr" used to mean "suicide murderer". I think the usual modern meaning is "person killed, or perhaps just severely persecuted, for their religion". (And then of course it gets used metaphorically to refer to any sort of actual or perceived persecution for any reason; but the underlying meaning is what I said.)
- xamuel 6y ago
  Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. Daily reminder that although Christ taught and preached for three long years, only a few dozen pages of his verified sayings have survived. Read them, meditate on them, treasure them. "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead" (Matthew 8:22)
- mcherm 6y ago
  Jesus Christ, dude, this is a forum for anything that good hackers would find interesting. Good hackers realize that there is a lot to learn from EVERYONE and that excluding or even just failing to listen Christians would be nearly as foolish and limiting as excluding women or those with black skin. ALWAYS stay open to learning from other people - ALWAYS!
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    I've rewritten this comment several times. It's hard to strike a good balance in intellectual conversations about topics that are central to people's core identities. If too much deference is given to belief, then conversations will inevitably end up lopsided, where it's impossible to disagree with any point without being charged with bigotry and intolerance. On the other hand, it's all too easy to burn the bridges that might allow a believer to join a discussion. And finally, there are some aspects of some beliefs that are antithetical to free inquiry, so it becomes especially hard to discuss such in a dispassionate way.
  - zpeti 6y ago
    Jesus Christ, apparently my parody style didn't work via text :(

perl4ever 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan%27s_Labyrinth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan%27s_Labyrinth

danidiaz 6y ago

An interesting (and free) book about the subject is "The Idea of the Labyrinth from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages" by Penelope Reed Doob https://www.amazon.com/Labyrinth-Classical-Antiquity-through-Middle-ebook/dp/B07SW7SNSQ/ https://www.amazon.com/Labyrinth-Classical-Antiquity-through... Sometimes it goes too far in seeing a "labyrinthine aesthetic" everywhere, but nevertheless it contains interesting information. Speaking of labyrinths, programmers are like Daedalus: they design labyrinths, only to be immured inside them. Daedalus was commissioned to build an actual labyrinth; programmers set out to build cathedrals, but then mess up. They keep reworking sections of the labyrinth even as they are lost inside, trying to straighten out the paths, render them comprehensible. But they always end up creating more twists and turns.

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
> programmers are like Daedalus... they always end up creating more twists and turns Doesn't sound like what a programmer would say. No decent dev I have ever met would do any but untangle the mess[0], and given any capacity, would not create one in the first place. [0] References to theseus need not apply.
- zentiggr 6y ago
  Well... even knowing I signed on to a project in 'sustainment' mode, I've still looked at and written up some ways to reduce the friction and complication of working with the old codebase. Even though the effort is unlikely to be put in, since the new version is in progress already.
pier25 6y ago
Love your metaphor about Daedalus but labyrinths have a single path compared to mazes which have multiple branching paths.
- danidiaz 6y ago
  In Antiquity and the Middle Ages, there was something of an incongruence between literary and visual depictions of labyrinths ("The Idea of the Labyrinth" touches on this). In literary sources, the labyrinths were often "multicursal", like mazes. One can choose a wrong turn and get lost. The labyrinth at Crete is described like that. But graphical depictions are almost invariably "unicursal" for some reason. From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth "Although early Cretan coins occasionally exhibit branching (multicursal) patterns,[2] the single-path (unicursal) seven-course "Classical" design without branching or dead ends became associated with the Labyrinth on coins as early as 430 BC,[3] and similar non-branching patterns became widely used as visual representations of the Labyrinth – even though both logic and literary descriptions make it clear that the Minotaur was trapped in a complex branching maze." If the cretan Labyrinth didn't have branching paths, why would Theseus need a ball of thread to retrace his steps? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariadne#Minos_and_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariadne#Minos_and_Theseus

maxiepoo 6y ago

These pictures, especially the second one, really remind me of Jonathan Blow's puzzle game "The Witness" which I highly recommend. Very appropriate since part of the game is predicated on how playing all of these abstract puzzles warps your perception of the world around you.

jdonaldson 6y ago

When I was younger I always enjoyed mowing a ~10 acre lawn, for many of the same reasons. I believe it does encourage mindfulness. You trace a route that shrinks slightly with each pass. You come back to pretty much the same spot you were just before. The next pass I reflected on what I was thinking about in the first pass, noting the various emotions I was feeling rather than being driven by them. Eventually the field shrinks and creates small islands of uncut grass, or a turn becomes too tight to complete successfully, and you have to change your mowing strategy. I always felt it helped trigger a change in mental approach as well. Although, this all could have just been mild heat stroke, who knows?