I think I am going to choose this quote from Harman cited in Ian Bogost, Alien Phenomenology.

“For we ourselves, just like Neanderthals, sparrows, mushrooms, and dirt, have never done anything else than act amidst the bustle of other actants”

It has changed the way I see myself in relation to everything else. It allows me to understand that there need not always be a causal reason for everything. Everything in existence is both and actor and an actant. Much like wind, one actant acts upon another and another until it leaves us without a defined beginning. I do not know where that cool breeze came from and is going to go. The deconstruction of everything into a categorical, logical, knowable order gives solace to our sense of dignity as human beings; it helps us position ourselves in this messy complex world. But as this quote suggests, to put ones self above mushrooms or sparrows does not really get at the reality of how things are (and what I think Harman is saying). We are but a thing on a list of things. Or maybe we are like the prawns in the Pad Thai I’m eating – what a mesh of food – think of all the relations!

Kind of looks like the drawing I did for what I think this studio looks like.