Our identities belong permanently to the conceptual world. They can’t be seen, heard, smelled, touched or tasted. They’re merely ideas. And everything else — at the start — belongs to the sensual world, the world outside us.
Gradually we reach beyond ourselves.
We encounter the sight, smell, touch, taste and sound of our own bodies.
And of the world around us.
And we discover that objects of the physical world can also cross over —
— and possess identities of their own.
Or, as our extensions —
— begin to glow —
— with the life —
— we lend to them.
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud
Background
The book is filled with many such gems, reproduced poorly here without their accompanying illustrations. I feature this one now because of the final line: the life we lend to them. This plays neatly into a pet philosophy of the world I developed when I was in the eighth grade, still a few years before I would get my hands on this book. Even though I’ve grown out of those ideas, I might get around to publishing them here, and thus this serves as foreshadowing.