glowing-fish posted:

What is this oil, that in seeing, we are blind to? It comes to us, not as a substance, not as a Thomist substantia, fixed in a schema, a silent reserve of scientifically/industrially defined reserve, kept inside of a pump. For in remembering these things, in remembering the theories of chemical composition and geological movement, we are forgetting the openness of our Being to what-is-that-is oil, the acrid smell in our noses as we stop at the pump, the concealed depths of the crack of the attendants butt cheeks as he waddles forward to greet us, even the rip of the Cool Ranch Doritoes as we step into the minimart to purchase "snacks", in this forgetting of the oil, in forgetting of the technical/utilitarian components of the gas station, in forgetting this abstract substance, stored in vats under the asphalt, we remember. We remember the unity that gives rise to this experience, we remember the folk spirit of the workers, united in their purpose of servicing vehicles, we remember the highway interchange that cradles the gas station. And we remember that we forgot out parent's credit card at home.