But the margins fascinate me… because the boundaries between things are not as clear as the things themselves.
In science fiction, for example, the standard distinction between ‘planet’ and ‘spaceship’ becomes far more intriguing if a ship becomes an ecosystem. Or an ecosystem is given engines and a steering wheel.
Nothing can be more certain and more clear than the difference between earth and water – but in reality the two states often blend and intermingle, in spaces that are neither solid nor liquid. The categories are ideals, archetypes, phenotypes. The in between is messy, chaotic, dirty, uncertain, and alive.
Distinctions themselves are clear. The lines between them, far less so.
