I am a Phenomenologist

Touch one of your hand with your other hand and ask yourself- which hand is touching which?

When our lecturer, Chris Tilley, asked us this question my mind almost exploded with inspiration. Are we only touching the world or is the world also touching us? this is one of the central questions of phenomenological thinking, which aims to look at the world and our engagement with it in a completely different way.
Nothing is objective or factual- reality always changes- it is determined under the influence of the weather, the smell of the air, our age, our mood, our hunger, our position in the room. It is time to admit it: our body, its involvement with what we look at, and how they both influence each other, are the most important factors in the reality we claim to portray. Our senses are constantly overlapping, our memories and dreams are always present, our consciousness is existing only because of our body.
The funny thing is that when I was a little kid I used to have those thoughts all the time. I used to walk in the street and wonder if I am actually walking or staying in one place but the landscape around me changes as my mind imagines it. Therefore I was amused by the idea that even when I’m in school I’m actually still in my bedroom. The distance between space and place, that vague and empty medium versus that specific and culturally filled landmark is not as far as we think of it- they each allow the other one to exist.
When I was a child I also used to stare at the tiny particles of dust flying around my room under the warm sunlight next to the window. Those dust particles were extremely engaging for me and I was enchanted by how they dance around me, travel in flocks and become visible only to me. I remember this as a very intimate bond with the material universe around me. I remember how they were looking at me, touching me, as I was looking at them.
I wonder how come reading about phenomenology takes me back to those early memories- was I a phenomenolist as a child without realizing? it seems like back then I had a much stronger tie with the world, with its silent and hidden parts, with its material parts. Things had a bigger scale and a stronger meaning. Perhaps it is logic, knowledge and Western obsessions with science and “reality” that drew me further away from those moments of sensory enlightenment, from looking at my stuffed animals and literally see them looking at me back and from placing my body as an active and organic actor of its enviornment. perhaps its time to claim those instincts back. Thank you Edmund Husser, thank you Crhis Tilley for making it clear- I am a phenomenologist!

*The video above is a part of my practical project for UCL digital Anthropology dealing with perception of space through phenomenology. please look at the full project here.