Two Worlds. One Cup.
Have you ever seen something in a place that was unexpected?
An object can exist in two worlds, but we only see it as belonging to our own world. We project onto it a vision for what it is and how it relates to us. We fill the object with meaning.
But once every blue moon the two worlds collide.
And like atoms being smashed together, the collision is highly explosive.
Two worlds, intertwined, not so very far away.
First, there is The World of What Is Seen, a world of beautiful, healthy, well intentioned people making responsible decisions.
We zoom in to watch the bustling activity of a high-end suburban grocery store. Customers glaze the aisles, perusing the shelves of artisanal pickles and hand selected banana chips. A list of curated music softly plays in the background, barely perceptible, but still able to invoke shallow emotion.
The store is decorated with the false promise of a welcoming atmosphere. It appears like a market of old, where haggling, friendly conversations, even bitter arguments could occur. In those places people recognized each other and were aware of their interconnectedness in all its earthy complexity.
But for all its friendly vibes, this store is not a place to linger. There are smiles from clerks that cannot be held for longer than a moment. There is an unspoken pressure to keep it moving – knock boxes into carts, swipe your card whenever you’re ready, load bags into trunks. An obnoxious old man spends too long picking out hamburger meat. Stop futzing around you old fart! Don’t dilly dally! Don’t ask too many questions! Keep the wheels turning.
In this store there are flavors everywhere. A gathering of flavors in one place, the likes of which human history has never seen before. How have they managed to bring tastes from every corner of the globe into this store in a strip mall?
Oddly though, there are no smells. The smells, packed away into their individual packaging, are far too polite to spill out into the open. They remain locked in their boxes and bags, and are not permitted to encroach on our personal space.
In The World of What Is Seen logic has been turned on its head. Up is down and left is right. Slow is fast, fast is slow, silence is deafening, noise is soothing, smiles convey hatred and anger conveys intimacy.
People strive to eat less calories and plan times throughout the week to exert themselves. They remain locked in their boxes and bags, far too polite to spill out into the open.
The terminal comfort is slowing poisoning them.
Then there is the World of What Is Unseen. It is a noisy world. A stench of burning fuel constantly hangs in the air. The people’s hands are rough and covered in machine grease.
It is in this World of What Is Unseen that our tiny cup begins its journey to the other World. It will become one of the many invisible threads that weave the two worlds together.
(But we are unaware.)
The cup begins in the bamboo farms, the sugarcane plantations, and the fields of bulrush. These are the raw ingredients used to manufacture green plateware.
The material is cut by hand and pressed into sheets or rolls. While this process could be described as hand crafted, it is not a thoughtful selection process to the farmers performing it, just ordinary labor done by folks who have been tilling these mountains and valleys for thousands of years.
Sheets and rolls of the stuff is stacked onto trucks and taken to the factory. They are stored in a warehouse until the day of creation. On that day large sheets are torn off and taken on a hand cart to the back of the production floor where a giant blender is mixing the materials and water, creating a sludge which is run through hot pipes and comes out on the molding machines.
The smell of steaming hot bulrush is as distinct as any scent the human nose has ever encountered. It is a condensing of memory and meaning that unfolds out into layer upon layer.
The factory is manned mostly by women.
Hot sludge pours out of the moulding machines and spreads out over the contours of the lower mould. The slush is pressed into the shape of the cup and is pulled from the machine by the women. They pull four, stack four, pull four, stack four. Over and over this process repeats itself, 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.
The non-stop din of the machinery is so loud it doesn’t stop at the ears. Like the hot sludge, it works its way down into your chest and your legs. A volume capable of producing nausea to the uninitiated. It is a shock to the body, like being shot with an arrow. The experience of silence can feel like pulling the tip out.
But the din must not stop!!
Production grinds on. Those that won’t work won’t eat. Work is being done and to pause is to die.
The cup is sent down the line, trimmed, inspected, packaged and loaded into a truck. The truck drives to the sea and the cup is put on a boat bound for The World of What Is Seen. It rides in total darkness along with its companion cups, across the vast ocean, landing in port. From the port it embarks to the store, still unseen, but drawing near to its five minutes of fame.
***
The cup is so green. So clean.
Responsible
It breaks down in 10 days, the trash fades away
What a nice cup.
The cup is, clearly, nothing at all like that dirty non-biodegradable bastard Styrofoam.
Styrofoam is so nasty and has been rejected by the inhabitants of The World of What is Seen. The reasons are painfully obvious: it never goes away and it doesn’t break down. Long after we’ve returned to dust, and our tombstones themselves have turned to dust, Styrofoam will endure. It makes beautiful people uncomfortable. Styrofoam is not from our world but from the Other World.
Beautiful people want biodegradable, something that can be disposed of responsibly. What nicer feeling could there be than to do something for the World?
And so, our journey takes back once again to the suburban grocery store. We walk the aisles at a respectful pace up to the front of the store. There nestled between Fair Trade Coffee Beans and the locally sourced, stone oven pizza is the all organic salad bar.
Atop the salad bar sits the Cup.
Hello old friend, what are you doing here? I did not expect to see you in this place. My how different you look in this context!
To know the hands that made you and see the hands that touch you now. Filling you with soup and spinach. As you’re filled with soup, so are you filled with our new meanings.
We’re projecting on to you a bold solution. Our minds carry images of landfills, trash floating in the ocean, seagulls being choked to death on 6-pack rings, scenes from The World of What Is Unseen. We imagine ourselves the heroes in the battle against environmental collapse. You, the Cup are a sign of our intention to fight.
But it’s all a delusion, we’re fooling ourselves. It’s victory without sacrifice.
Little Cup, we know where you are going, but are blind to where you come from. Just as you quickly compost in the garden, so do we imagine you appeared out of thin air.