Let us say I draw a rabbit on a blackboard. You say, “There’s a rabbit.” In reality there is nothing at all on the blackboard except the simple line…You see only my chalk line this line limits the content. It says what space is within the picture and what is outside.
-Rollo May
What is the content of these contours?
The lines we draw delineate boundaries on multiple levels. Yet contours constantly change, even a slight shift in one’s visual perspective realigns the configuration of edges, lighting adjustments soften some contours while sharpening others, and physical contours erode and accumulate, tighten and sag, ebb and flow over time. Contours and the content they delimit transform in response to changing contexts, time’s passage, and lines of sight.
Rivers flow in life sustaining lines. Their contours define basins and watersheds. Rivers are the archetypes of change, their contents drawn downstream by the unyielding force of gravity, their banks perpetually shifting in response to natural phenomena and human interventions.
How we see rivers informs the laws, policies, and agreements drafted in courtrooms, at conference tables, and in congressional chambers. These lines of text, in turn, determine how rivers are managed, effectively shaping the future of cultures, economics, and ecologies.
Anyone who has ever taken a drawing class knows how hard it is to draw lines that accurately record what you see. This activity seems so direct but is often an elusive and confounding practice. Drawing requires relational thinking, every value is based on surrounding values and the scale and position of every line is dependent upon its relationship to all other lines.
Representing the true character of observed contours requires shedding assumptions and conceptions about how things look. For example, we tend to exaggerate transitions when contours change direction, have trouble discerning if perspectival diagonals are angling up or down, sharpen the edges of ellipses, the list goes on. Drawing reveals how hard it is to accurately translate what you see, to draw each part in relation to the whole.
This process is made even more challenging by the dynamic nature of observation. Eyes constantly blink and refocus, each eye has a slightly different perspective, and our entire perspective must shift as we look up at our subject and back down at the page.
While this quote is overused, Heraclitus incisively expresses the active interplay between experience and perception:
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
The currents of change keep us vital. Seeing both the rabbits and ducks (so to speak) requires active focusing and refocusing, an ability to see more than one perspective at once. Actively observing how contours create content ensures that our perspectives do not stagnate over time. Relational thinking is the key to making an accurate drawing and defining the contours of policies that will responsively define the future of ecosystems.