Opening Doors: the Magic of Small Decisions to Make Change

“There’ll never be a door. You are inside and the fortress contains the universe and has no other

“There’ll never be a door. You are inside
and the fortress contains the universe
and has no other side nor any back
nor any outer wall nor secret core.
Do not expect the rigor of your path,
which stubbornly splits into another one,
which stubbornly splits into another one,
to have an end. . . .
.       .-from Jorge Luis Borges‘ “The Labyrinth”. The Sonnets: In Praise of Darkness. Penguin Classics; 2010

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I’ve not made a thorough study of Borges’ Works, nor his Biography. I have, however, enjoyed many of his writings recently.

The door as an abstract form is a transition point: any opening to a new world where rules and scenery change. A door is an opportunity. Perhaps you live in a Seeall world where doors and windows come like a waterfall at warp speed. For me, in a simpler world, I feel lucky to know a true portal when I see one. Borges’ works overflow with references to discrete places that have sharp borders and infinite depth: a rose, the moon, a labyrinth. It seems to me in his world that doors fell on a hopeless, repeating, circular map. I sympathize with a difficult choice, and admire the playfulness and wisdom of asking questions about doors. But I would ask him, if I’d had the chance to speak with him, if he had turned down some door in youth that became his ever-after tormentor. Each true opportunity –each storm– fully engaged, never repeats.

Borges revealed that (depending on the rhythm of one’s own inner map) a critical but unattended-to door may present itself in a thousand different forms. It can do so unrelentingly –think about a time in your life of a recurring dream– because it is the only next step available on one’s path. Or, at the other terrifying extreme, Borges also imagined a world that was door-less. Both extremes –an infinitely repeating circle of doors or no doors— offered worlds with no way out. There must have been some small beauty gained at the place of turning away from a door (like the lovely contemplation of its potential), and perhaps Borges knew about that himself, but I cannot find it in his works. Can you? Borges said, the word that cannot-be-spoken is the most important word in any story. Did he ever write a story or poem about a door that had the capacity to be opened?

Turning to another poet who understood a door, Rumi ingeniously proposed that, in the act of longing itself we are at our closest to touching God. This sentiment seems opposite to Borges’ explorations, and might, itself, have solved Borges’ problem. Without longing, a door has no permission to appear. My first longing, as a toddler, opened my first door. That was my first abstracted concept of “path”, and it arrived as a dream-like visualization of a door filled hallway. It happened upon my mother’s offering of the word, “someday” in answer to my now-forgotten request for some desired activity or object. I asked, “When is someday?” I thought it might be Sunday. I recall the answer was not fully understandable to me. But her explanation, now also lost in time, must have been a wise one to evoke in my mind’s eye a door.

 

“A clear head at the center changes everything
There are no edges to my loving now.
You’ve heard it said there’s a window.
that opens from one mind to another,
but if there’s no wall there’s no need,
for fitting the window or the latch
.       .-from Rumi, “Sudden Wholeness”, The Book of Love; Transl. Coleman Barks; Harper; 2003

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What does the concept of “door” mean to you? Do you agree with Borges that there is no real door?

 

 
 January 8, 2011

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Laura Maaske, MSc.BMC.

Biomedical Communicator

Medical Illustrator

Medical Animator

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Laura Maaske – Medimagery LLC
Medical Illustration & Design
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