
The Pandemic-Era Appeal of Labyrinths - polm23
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-29/the-pandemic-era-appeal-of-labyrinths
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prewett
I walked the labyrinth in Amiens Cathedral and I thought it mirrored the
experience of the Christian life pretty well. At the beginning you quickly go
from the outside towards the center (God), mirroring in the initial joy and
closeness you feel after initially choosing to follow God. Then the labyrinth
moves away from the center, but not too far out, as the initially high fades
and you learn who God is, repent of sins, learn to serve. The next stage
wanders around the edges, far from the center, mirroring the "dark night of
the soul" and you wonder if you're ever going to make it back to the middle.
Then, suddenly, move from the outside into the endpoint in the middle.

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danidiaz
An interesting (and free) book about the subject is "The Idea of the Labyrinth
from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages" by Penelope Reed Doob
[https://www.amazon.com/Labyrinth-Classical-Antiquity-
through...](https://www.amazon.com/Labyrinth-Classical-Antiquity-through-
Middle-ebook/dp/B07SW7SNSQ/) Sometimes it goes too far in seeing a
"labyrinthine aesthetic" everywhere, but nevertheless it contains interesting
information.

Speaking of labyrinths, programmers are like Daedalus: they design labyrinths,
only to be immured inside them. Daedalus was commissioned to build an _actual_
labyrinth; programmers set out to build cathedrals, but then mess up. They
keep reworking sections of the labyrinth even as they are lost inside, trying
to straighten out the paths, render them comprehensible. But they always end
up creating more twists and turns.

~~~
throwaway_pdp09
> programmers are like Daedalus... they always end up creating more twists and
> turns

Doesn't sound like what a programmer would say. No decent dev I have ever met
would do any but untangle the mess[0], and given any capacity, would not
create one in the first place.

[0] References to theseus need not apply.

~~~
zentiggr
Well... even knowing I signed on to a project in 'sustainment' mode, I've
still looked at and written up some ways to reduce the friction and
complication of working with the old codebase. Even though the effort is
unlikely to be put in, since the new version is in progress already.

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jdonaldson
When I was younger I always enjoyed mowing a ~10 acre lawn, for many of the
same reasons. I believe it does encourage mindfulness. You trace a route that
shrinks slightly with each pass. You come back to pretty much the same spot
you were just before. The next pass I reflected on what I was thinking about
in the first pass, noting the various emotions I was feeling rather than being
driven by them. Eventually the field shrinks and creates small islands of
uncut grass, or a turn becomes too tight to complete successfully, and you
have to change your mowing strategy. I always felt it helped trigger a change
in mental approach as well.

Although, this all could have just been mild heat stroke, who knows?

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maxiepoo
These pictures, especially the second one, really remind me of Jonathan Blow's
puzzle game "The Witness" which I highly recommend. Very appropriate since
part of the game is predicated on how playing all of these abstract puzzles
warps your perception of the world around you.

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perl4ever
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan%27s_Labyrinth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan%27s_Labyrinth)

