The Nature of Remoteness

I've recently returned from visiting the Northwest of Scotland, taking in the Outer Hebrides and St. Kilda. Being there made me think about the nature of being 'remote.' St. Kilda is 41 miles from Harris on the Hebrides, over 600 miles from my home, no phone or radio reception, Internet access or television. For three days, I was completely out of touch with the so-called 'outside world', quite possibly for the first time in my life.


Now that we're increasingly used to being always 'connected' to the central cycle of news, analysis and comment in an array of platforms, it is odd to be so disconnected from this process. We can, and should, always speculate on what affect the 24 hours new cycle will have on our society, our mindset and our thought processes.

What is important to ask however, is when we are detached from this pattern, what are we 'remote' from: our own personal centre; from what we refer to as 'civilisation' - those physical spaces of towns and cities; from the governmental centres or perhaps more accurately from the electronic communication processes that allow us to feel we are part of the global society.

Subsequently, it has to be deduced that remoteness is of course relative. To residents of Harris, London would be remote. Everywhere is remote to someone. Indeed, even being in Times Square in New York or next to the Eiffel Tower in Paris would not grantee a feeling of connectivity - why would these bastions of Western civilisation not be remote to billions in the third world? Remoteness then, is based first on both your personal centre - your home, your family, the streets and fields were you grow up and the locations you know before you turn a corner, and secondly are those spaces which your society gives precedence to. Our cities are seen as 'central' as oppose to the countryside which is remote not only because most of our time is spent in cities, but because they have features which we deem to be the bastions and necessities of our civilisation - transport links, hospitals, bars, dual carriageways.

Remoteness perhaps tells us less about where we are, but about what we are use to, what we find familiar. The lack of those same buildings, or food or of course people is how we then register our location as 'remote'. So the place we call 'home' is in fact the major factor determining our perception of feeling 'remote.'

It's often said it's good to go for a few days without being constantly connected, continually informed. For those three days, I'll be honest, I didn't miss it too much: I was much more aware of it once I returned to the mainland, knowing that I could have access to the Internet, or the ability to listen to the radio and watch TV. Once I was in the presence of the media again, it was impossible to resist catching up on the knowledge I'd been missing, but when such platforms were absent, it was easier to ignore.

But such an absence is worth it - I've never stood on an island in the North Atlantic and looked round and seen a clear horizon in all directions. Remoteness, in this case, can be beautiful.