Horizontal and Vertical
The horizontal is continuity, and the vertical is transcendence.
When a stone lies on the ground, it exists as part of the earth.
It exists with horizontality as part of the continuous flow of this world.
However, when the stone is stood upright, the flow is severed, and the horizontal is broken.
Above and below, heaven and earth, light and darkness, there and here.
What was continuous is divided, a new verticality is born, and a boundary is created there.
When we look at this through the human act of "standing," a similar landscape comes into view.
A newborn baby first lies on the ground.
It is in a state of sleep, connected to this world, and stable.
As it grows, it moves in a way close to quadrupedal walking, but horizontality is still maintained.
The baby is still living within a continuity with the world.
Eventually, the time comes to stand on two feet. In that moment, the human transitions from the horizontal world to the vertical world. This is not merely a change in posture, but a transition from continuity to transcendence. The transition from a sleeping body to a standing body is a movement from a stable place to an unstable one. Here, various concepts are born. The birth of the other, the division of the self, the acquisition of solitude, the emergence of difference, the recognition of death, the question of life. By standing, humans for the first time recognize boundaries and learn that this world is not just a simple continuity.
From a connected world to a severed world.
By standing, the stable body becomes unstable, and while constantly containing the possibility of falling, it is tasked with maintaining balance.
Standing carries the fate of constant collapse.
Yet, people try to stand. Why is that?
Because standing is, in itself, a prayer.
People can live in a horizontal world. In fact, we are living in a horizontal world. We spend much of our time in a horizontal world that continues to connect, expand, and flow through money, language, information, and networks. However, that alone causes people to dissolve into the flow. At that point, vertical transcendence becomes necessary.
Time spent praying before statues of stone or wood, such as chapels, tombstones, Buddhist statues, or divine images. Time spent listening to music and knowing the silence of the world. Time spent acknowledging differences with others, confirming boundaries, and affirming solitude. Seeking verticality and standing is to bundle the scattered world together once more. To pray is the act of bundling scattered things into the vertical. However, people cannot remain standing forever. Because doing only that would result in being severed from the world. Solitude always accompanies verticality. Therefore, people seek connection and head toward horizontality.
Horizontal continuity and vertical transcendence. Humans sway between the two.
Images of the horizontal
Sea, earth, floor, plaza, expansion, connection, continuity, flow, information, network, road, money, language, sleeping body, quadrupedal walking, stability
Images of the vertical
Tree, house, tower, chapel, tombstone, Buddhist statue, pillar, wall, severance, difference, solitude, boundary, convergence, concentration, prayer, standing body, bipedal walking, instability
As a counterargument
Is there not also transcendence in horizontal things (the infinity of the sea or the horizon)?
Do vertical things not also contain continuity (the growth of trees, the development of life)?
I would like to consider this question from next time onwards.
2026 Xiaoman
Takatoshi Kuronuma