The end of the world as we know it

Did someone say, “Stick to what you know!”? We’re no longer sure of what we know. Over time, the order of things has changed. But the only thing that remains unchanged are our habits. We’re used to it; our hands always reach for the same things, but they’re not there. When we encounter things we’re not used to in their place, our balance is lost, we stumble. If you see someone falling into the void as they try to hold on, spending all their energy maintaining their ever-losing balance, that’s us. Someone who repeats the same movements over and over, even though the things they’re trying to hold on to are no longer there, eventually falls. We’ve fallen, we’ll fall. Thank God, we’re not alone. There are quite a few of us. There are also those who have managed to hold on to something and are left hanging in the air. Falling and being suspended in the air are the same thing. In both, the feet don’t touch the ground. We’re like bored children who can no longer play the games they’re used to on a ground governed by law. Is the groundwork that we memorized until yesterday, how many squares to move in which direction, and how to move, still in place? We're not even sure about that.

One thing we know for sure: we are not alone. Loneliness multiplies when shared; we are a multitude. We are loners, stunned by stumbling, unwavering in our understanding even as the world we know changes, persistently clinging to objects that no longer belong. As the balanced structure of society, composed of citizens, disintegrates, individuals whose balance is disrupted constantly see themselves falling in their dreams. Even if they spring from their beds, the nightmare of falling doesn't end; it continues where it left off. How terrifying it is to be unable to wake up from a nightmare. We used to sleep to escape reality. It doesn't work anymore; our sleep has been invaded by reality. Awake and asleep, our hands, searching for solid objects to hold on to, constantly fall into the void. Or is it habits that prevent us from waking?

A lonely person is never alone; there are crowds within, as long as they don't dry out. Within us are forests, dragons, starry skies. A lonely person is lonely because they cannot share the crowds within them. The connections that bind crowds are not given ready-made; they must be created. “An invisible thread runs through the air, momentarily connecting and untying one living being to another, then returning and stretching again between moving points, drawing new figures momentarily, thus giving this unhappy city, a happy city it was unaware of, every second.” (Calvino, Invisible Cities). The world we know has ended, but our habits persist. Habits can only see familiar objects, not the thread that binds beings together. There is no longer a cohesive and balanced society. On the contrary, there are individual bodies, disconnected and constantly disrupted. “Bresson is the first filmmaker to create an unpredetermined space from small, disconnected particles of space.” (Deleuze, What is the Act of Creation?). Bodies are also particles of space, and by touching each other, they can create unpredetermined shared living spaces. In Bresson, it is the hands that bind small spatial fragments together. Only hands can connect one body or one spatial fragment to another. “Without a doubt, Bresson is the greatest filmmaker who reintroduced the value of touch and contact to cinema.” Creation has nothing to do with pleasure; a creator necessarily creates something they need. What we need are hands. Hands are not predetermined; they must be created. We need hands that make visible the invisible thread that binds bodies together, not hands that grasp familiar objects.

Resistance is spatial; a body whose existence is constantly threatened can only survive to the extent that it can create its own space. It is hands that will bind body parts together and create spaces of resistance. It is not hostile forces that kill us, but habits and clichés. Saying, "I'm alone, no one understands me" is a cliché. The crowds within the bodies that power has separated by highways are part of the same ecosystem. The world we know wasn't a beautiful thing. Only hands can connect the crowds within us.