Please stop reading.
That’s right. Close this book, just for a moment. Lift your eyes and look
around. Where are you? What do you see?
Perhaps you’re in the campus library, surrounded by shelves of books, with
carpeting underfoot and the heating or air-conditioning humming quietly in the
background. Perhaps you’re home—a dormitory room, a bedroom in a house, a
suite in a garden apartment, maybe your kitchen. Perhaps you’re outside, lying
beneath a tree in the middle of campus, or perhaps you’re on a subway or a bus
or even an airplane. What is it like? How does it feel to be where you are?
Is the light adequate for reading? Is the temperature comfortable? Is there
fresh air to breathe? Are there contaminants in the air—say, solvents off-gassing
from newly laid carpet or a recently painted wall? Does the chair fi t your body
comfortably?
If you’re inside, look outside. What do you see through the window? Are
there trees? Buildings? Is the neighborhood noisy or tranquil? Are there other
people? Are there busy streets, with passing trucks and busses snorting occasional
clouds of diesel exhaust?