Sabrinaland! Ah, the joy of Thought!

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by A. Square whisked me away. I want to think outside the box about everything. This book just makes me think that everything I know, on some level, is a box. So as much as I want to escape my box, there is perhaps only a bigger box or a different derivative of a box-based thing that I'd escape into. If that makes sense. There are so many overlapping and reoccurring themes and ideas in these shapes that I can't help but savor them and hopefully continue to understand, and apply them to Sabrinaland.




There is Flatland, from the perspective of A. Square that has experienced Spaceland. He dreamt of Lineland and witnessed Pointland and yearned for a fourth dimension...a more spacious Spaceland.



Soliloquy from Pointland, the Abyss of No Dimensions:



"Infinite beatitude of existence! It is; and there is none else beside It. [...] It fills all space, and that It fills, It is. what It thinks, that It utters; and what It utters, that It hears; and It itself is Thinker, Utterer, Hearer Thought, Word, Audition; it is the One, and yet the All in All. Ah, the happiness, ah, the happiness of Being!"



[A. Square attempted to enlighten the little point that other worlds existed. He spoke to him and said two points make a line.]



"Ah, the joy, and the joy of Thought! What can It not achieve by thinking! Its own Thought coming to Itself, suggestive of Its disparagement, thereby to enhance Its happiness! Sweet rebellion stirred up to result in triumph! Ah, the divine creative power of the All in One! Ah, the joy, the joy of Being!"



God of Pointland cannot conceive plurality, so therefore he understands A.Square's words for his own thought.



This passage, like so many other parts and details and ideas in Flatland are super intriguing to me. I finished the book and find myself recalling all these details in it, analogies and critiques upon society. One of the underlying notions is how to convince people of something that is not within their relm of thought, or limits. I definitely consider myself open, but open within reason is probably more accurate. It's like A. Square crystallizes his concept by literally pointing out the pointlessness of it all, when he introduces Pointland/God of Pointland.



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Academically, I am open to changing my mind and being convinced of ideas/concepts/thoughts because I understand myself to be a student, one who is constantly open to learning more. I have an acknowledgement that I am not an authority in these things, so to speak. This actually kind of applies to all concrete, 'learnable' things like sports or cooking or accounting. That's it.





But when it comes to feelings and emotions and perspectives on situations, I am realizing I am a lot more closed than I thought. I don't really grant authority to others in this matter and find that I do always have to be right in a situation, especially one that I'm involved in. Doesn't everyone think they are right, or what's the point?



Stuff is grey. Often times there is no explicit winning, but just an acknowledgement that you communicated your 'point' and it is understood as that, 'a point.' You have 'a point.' And then I read Flatland, and wonder how often, in how many ways, I am a Point. God of Pointland, the abyss of no dimensions, incapable of really comprehending and getting someone else's 'point,' being able to escape isolation and make a line from my point to theirs.



If it's all about making points, (or that is simply the level I'm at..which is the very bottom/basic/foundation/elementary), how can I start to connect the dots? Points to Lines to Shapes to Volumes to ?...How does this work in Thoughtland, so I can just begin to comprehend the infinite potential of all the 'points' we make?