Zoe Adler: The Human Rhizom

After my preliminary reading of Deluze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus I found that I seemed to instantly connect with the notion of continuous experiences. At first, I was not completely sure as to why my interest was particularly peaked. Perhaps it was my seventh grade anarchist re emerging, working to abolish the social boundaries forcing us to “render imperceptible, not ourselves, but what makes us act, feel, and think” (Deluze and Guattari, 378). Or it could be the focus on introspection and individuality, proving that everything in the world is different depending on who experiences it. Maybe it was grasping the concept of a rhizome, which is made of plateaus allowing “a continuous, self-vibrating region of intensities whose development avoids any orientation toward a culmination point or external end” (D&G, 378) thus abolishing the notion of specific beginning and ending points. Overall I decided that my interest was initially peaked by the universality proposed, possibly appealing to my inner hippie vouching for everyone loving each other and somehow finding a connection. Taking this underlying concept I instantly thought about my web of friends and interestingly enough as I reread A Thousand Plateaus I began to draw more and more information leading me to believe I, Zoe Adler, am a rhizome, with “no beginning or end…between things,” (D&G, 378).

Social unity has always been extremely important in my life. More simply put, I love my friends and they have always been a huge part of my life. It goes beyond that though, it seems that somehow it is made evident who is destined to be my closest friends because they simply keep reappearing in my life with no discernable pattern or timeline, a kind of “cyclic unity of the eternal return” (D&G, 380). However through my constantly expanding social roots I am able to continue meeting new people while simultaneously preserving my old friendships. Another aspect of my social plateau that interests me is the fact that none of my best friends get along, which reminded me of the statement “not every trait in a rhizome is necessarily linked to a linguistic feature” (D&G, 380) implying that not all of my friends need to be tied together in any emotional form. Further it reveals that friendship and social situations do not necessarily have clear-cut reasons for happening; some of my closest friends are people who could not be more different from myself. What it comes down to is that like myself, “any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be” (D&G 380). This coincides with my desire to relate to people on new levels, and I feel that our societal environment would be changed exponentially if everyone simply attempted to go out of their comfort zone and attempt to cordially connect and relate to others. As corny as it may be, I truly believe kindness and strong social bonds are extremely important.

Now, to most it would not seem strange to have the same people in your life from the ages of about four to eighteen, but with my particular case it is fairly surprising. By attending various alternative and private schools I was never ensured that people from my neighborhood would be attending school with me. Let me explain the two main friendships prompting me to think that people return to my life for a reason.

Cayley Bowles and I first attended school together at the age of 5, but were not friends. We were acquainted with one another at a very young age, forgot about each other, and continued with our rigorous elementary school academic career. In third grade I switched schools and left Cayley behind without a second thought. We had never done anything together outside of school and therefore in my mind we were not friends, I simply knew who she was. Later, in fourth grade, my mom began working with Cayley at my old elementary school and we saw each other a bit more often. However it was sporadic, only a couple times, and ceased to continue. When middle school rolled around Cayley somehow, completely independent of one another, appeared at the same student welcome party that I did involving a quaint class of 32 girls. What were the odds? I was so surprised to see her there! We still were not very close, not to mention we could not be more different. Cayley spent half of her life in the water playing water polo, another quarter playing soccer, and then left her spare time to swimming. I have never enjoyed athletics much, and was intimidated by her tomboy appearance. We then decided to carpool out of convenience, and continued to do so for the next three years, everyday! Ultimately we went to different high schools, but would always run into each other and began to get closer. Our friendship actually blossomed at different schools, which I feel is interesting. Rhizomes have “lines that always connect back to each other” (D&G, 382) just as Cayley and I always seem to be reunited. Many could have marked the end of our friendship at the end of middle school, but that “is a regrettable characteristic of the Western mind…” attempting “to relate expressions and actions of exterior or transcendent ends, instead of evaluating them on a plane of consistency,” (D&G, 384)

Another one of my best friends, Julia Shapiro, first appeared in my second half of elementary school. Again we knew each other but were not close. She also attended my all girls’ middle school, and we became close in seventh grade. Coincidentally she lives on the same street as Cayley, also. We went our separate ways for high school, but when I switched high schools junior year it turns out that she was attending the same school. Then, we developed our friendship and have remained very close.

Although these stories sound fairly simple, it is pretty strange in Palo Alto and is unique to my family as well. Interestingly, Cayley and Julia have no interest in each other and do engage in any form of communication whatsoever. Thus revealing that there is never any discernible answer, no absolute solutions or conclusions that can be drawn because each experience depends on the individual. Lastly, it seems that Cayley and Julia seem to be appearing in my life with no fixed time pattern. There will always be deviations and I think of our friendships as continuous planes, just as a rhizome is made up of endless plateaus.