eat dirt

“The transition from childhood to adulthood is one in which we partially learn how to bring the display of emotion under conscious control.”

Oh sweet naive, ignorant childhood! Where have you gone? Are the days of making mud-pies, eating worms and playing in the dirt a blissful, unattainable, undoable relic of prepersonal joy?

“An infant has no language skills with which to cognitively process sensations, nor a history of previous experiences from which to draw in assessing the continuous flow of sensations coursing through his or her body. Therefore, the infant has to rely upon intensities.”

I suppose that is why infants put a lot of things into their mouth – the most sensitive and receptive organ. Although at times not the best method of exploration, they are actively accumulating affects, learning from experiences of intensity and the moment of unformed potential.

If infants are indeed creating a personal aggregation of labelled experiences, can we suppose that if affects are materials, then feelings and emotions are form?

– Jordan Lane

Eric Shouse, ‘Feeling, Emotion, Affect’, in Melissa Gregg, ed. ‘Affect.’ M/C Journal 8.6 (2005). 25 Nov. 2011.

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