Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Step Backward, Revert and Undo


One of the most amazing things about doing anything on a computer, be it photo manipulating, number crunching, creative writing, drawing or designing, is that without even thinking about it (and usually forgetting how difficult it used to be, before the days of digital information) we can now 'undo' anything and simply step backwards to any stage of what were doing before (if we need to) in order to 'redo' it.  Sometimes, say if we were carried away and overworked a design altogether, we can merely 'revert' back to the copy we made before we overdid it.



The beauty of stacking stones dry laid is that it allows pretty much the same thing. 


There isn't any glue to be scraped off. No cement to wash off. No hardened mortar to chisel away, if perchance what you're building needs to be taken down and redone. No metal bolts to un-weld. No ingredients all melted into an inseparable mess.


There is no loss or waste of material. No forgetting what you were working with, or on. No missing connections. No disconnections. No stages or levels you can't return to. No evaporating, disappearing act. No intangibles to try to find or remember. 


There's none of this 'nothing to show for yourself' stuff after you're done walling or when you're undoing walling, no nothing to return to nonsense. There are no dry stone non sequiturs. You can go forward or backwards smoothly. There are no lost files. No one to say you can't go back. If you do jump too far ahead or make a mistake, you can simply backtrack in logical connected steps.


A dry stone wall is incredibly connected, even in all its disconnectedness.