Nota Bene №4: index
the greatest gift, the missing entry, & the big YES
Our species wants to know where we are and how we fit into the bigger picture. As I tread in the deepest waters of my life, I've been thinking lately that the index is the greatest gift. For me, an index is so soothing.
Some believe humans are wired for emotional connection, while others assert that we need attachment. I believe it’s simpler than this: humans are biologically wired to index and find ourselves in an associative pattern with others; this pattern is overarching and includes emotional connection, attachment, intellectual stimulation, and anything really because an index is neutral.
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To index something is to give it a place. A record, a reference, an order imposed upon the scattered. The word index comes from the Latin indicare, meaning “to point out, to show.” An index is not the thing itself but a way of pointing toward it, like an arrow in the margins, a thread through a labyrinth.
