I was watching [this] interview with Stephen Fry (and Robin Williams) from 2002. Stephen, I may say Stephen, was promoting a book -his book- on bears (Rescuing the Spectacled Bear: a Peruvian Diary, for those interested). Early on in the interview Stephen said something that really resonated with me:

"One thing's a point I was struck to make about animals, is that we are so interested in them. You know, we chase them in order to look at them and photograph them. But no animal (...) is interested in us.** And it occured to me, we are always trying to define what it is that human beings have that animals don't. You know: consciousness, wit, self-awareness, or how anyone tries to call it. But it is actually interest in other animals. And essentially a bear doesn't give a cuz about whether or not kangaroos exist. And kangaroos don't care that there's such a thing as a cockroach. But we care about all of them. It is a most remarkable thing."


The reason for this interest? Guilt, Stephen states. Bears don't feel bad about for instance how they behaved yesterday. They don't think to themselves "I have been a really bad bear yesterday". So our interest, according to Stephen (in this interview), is based around the idea of either trying to make up for our 'sins' or trying to find redemption by showing affection. Which therefore, I think, could actually still be seen as a 'hightened' or 'existing of' consciousness or self-awareness opposed to -in this light- animals. Because we are aware that we need to fill the gap, the hole we've created and try to bring amends by caring and watching and documenting. Therefore: are we hunting for ourselves?


Naturally the 'actual' hunting ritual could rather be seen as a sign of empowerment; humans above animals. Although, as Ellen DeGeneres ones remarked on her show: "I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say it's such a beautiful animal." There is still, depends on how you look at it, a token of respect, of amazement, of bewilderment, towards the existence of the animal that isn't directly bound to the idea of 'humans above animals'. That having said, as she continues: "There you go, I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her." The differentiation made between what you can and cannot do with a human head opposed to an animal head is hereby a sign that within this admiration -that in one way surpases the 'division' between one and another; admiration-, it also reinforces this differentiation and perhaps even amplifies it. Because admiration, the interest for things that goes beside yourself, is in this sense still bound to the division what you can and cannot do to one thing or another. It's the division of it being a-OK to cut off the head of a deer and hang it on your wall, but oh dear if you nail your mother's head next to it.


Stephen Fry:
"What's magical about [bears] is that they just spend one-hundred percent of every minute of every hour of every day being a bear. And a tree-frog spends all of its time being a tree-frog. We spend all our time trying to be somebody else. (...) They are just one-hundred percent bear, whereas human beings feel we're not one-hundred percent human, that we're always letting ourselves down. We're constantly striving towards something, to some fulfilment."



To get back to my question (are we hunting for ourselves?): By trying to define the other, we are trying to define ourselves. And in this case thus the idea becomes that we're hunting for ourselves by hunting for others. Or to turn the tables, as Dejan Stojanovic has written in The Sun Watches The Sun: "You not only are hunted by others, you unknowingly hunt yourself." This in combination with what Stephen further stated in the interview (see above), creates a definition of self -or idea of self- that is not only bound to the affirmation of humanness (consciousness/self-awareness) from within that beams outwards. You being interested in animals, photographing them, hunting them and putting their heads on your wall, but also: You being the one looked at, photographed, hunted down and put on the wall. We do not only define ourselves through the interest -the guilt, the gap- we're trying to fill towards our own failing. But moreover we are also being defined by those looking at us. We exist, a version of us exist, within the interest (or perhaps even disinterest) of those surrounding us. Prey and predator, simultaneously standing at the right and wrong end of the gun. Also: being a human standing above animals and being an animal defined by humans.

• Yarn: 20x Phildar Impact 3.5 in Sapin
  1x  Phildar Impact 3.5 in Gris (50gr = 134m)
• 3.5 mm hook (surprise, surprise)

• Make 37 (classic) Granny Squares with a measurement of 17x17 cm
• Make 2 panels in Granny Stripe with a measurement of 85x9 cm
• Sew the squares together by crocheting -on the 'good side' of the square, as explained [here]- and as depicted on the pattern above.
• Now sew everything together into one whole (as -again- demonstrated on the pattern above), and ta-da, a jacket is born...

Love,
Dominique


*I know, I know, I'm like about two days too late with this post. Sorry. I sort of thought on Friday that it was Thursday (although I had an important meeting on Friday, which I had that day, which I still sort of thought was Thursday). Then I realised my mistake and thought 'well I will just publish it on Friday'. Aha. Yes. That would've been a smart thing to do. (But as you can see I didn't do that either. Oops.) So here we are, on a Saturday evening, eventually, finally, posting this damn post. I've actually had this post in the ready this summer (and the 'jacket' I'd already made, like, last year, notice how I stated in [this] post that I'd "keep you posted" with the progress of it... aha. I'm really good at this blogging stuff) but thought the subject to be too autumny. Boy was I wrong! Next week, these coming days, there's going to be another heat wave. NoooOOoooOOOoo! This means sitting in a cramped bus with 30+ degrees, sitting in a cramped train with 30+ degrees, sitting in a cramped metro with 30+ degrees and sitting in a small locked cramped room for several hours on a row WITH 30+ DEGREES. I genuinely hate it. It especially gets on my nerves when the news keeps calling it 'nice weather ahead'. THIS ISN'T NICE. I'M MELTING. IT'S BLOODY SEPTEMBER, THIS MEANS JUMPERS AND BIG COATS AND FLUFFY SOCKS AND CUDDLING WITH YOUR DOG AND NOT THIS. NOT THIS. AAAAHHH!!!! It makes me anxious about the 'dying world' and our near future of either being zombies, or, well, of just simply being dead. Anyway, I hope you liked this -a little bit different- post... *sigh*
**Can't quite figure out what word he's saying instead of the '(...)', but you get the point...

What I'm wearing: Jacket - Made by me / Top - Made by me / Trousers - Made by my mum / Bag - Vintage, given to me by Hilde Vos / Hat - H&M (old) / Shoes - H&M (old) /
Resources: 1 / 2 /