Kalyani Tupkary

While historical texts have long been subject to critical analysis, the formal and historical problems posed by graphic representations of time have largely been ignored. This is no small matter: graphic representation is among our most important tools for organizing information.*

We live with these realities because they make the rest of our lives feel manageable. But time did not have to be arranged that way. We have  imagined  time, at least in Western countries, as subservient to commerce, and attempted to export or forcibly impose that understanding worldwide.

This is a world in which time is not fluid, parting to make way for events. Instead, time is a rigid, bonelike structure, extending infinitely ahead and behind, fossilizing the future as well as the past. Every action, every thought, every breath of wind, every flight of birds is completely determined, forever… In a world of fixed future, life is

For most of recorded history, people have thought of people as the only ones that were someone. Well, they used to talk to Rocks, Rivers, and Trees, but they long forgot to do that ever since. This is a book about thinking about how the world is to all the someone’s that aren’t like you and I.