The Fortress and the Cage

This takes us into how symbolic infrastructures both protect and imprison collective construal:

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TOPO:

You called the lattice a riverbank—

but sometimes it feels more like a wall.

RHEO:

That’s because it is both.

TOPO:

Both?

RHEO:

A fortress

that shelters the collective

from chaos,

and a cage

that limits the horizons

of what can be construed.

TOPO:

So protection and imprisonment

are the same architecture?

RHEO:

The same stones.

The difference lies in

what you are keeping out

and what you are keeping in.

TOPO:

And the collective?

RHEO:

Often grateful for the protection,

even when it means

the sky they see

is not the whole sky.

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RHEO & TOPO:

The walls we build for safety

become the boundaries of our world.