Rubik or Rubric: The Cube as Bridge

Abstract

Obsession/addiction may serve as bridges from Sartre’s “being in itself”, as epitomized by the discouraged worker effect of our ex-navy “cuber”, through a cyber-island of “being for itself” where the obsession/addiction of the cube forces externalization (Sartre, 1943 (2003)). Ultimately the need to demonstrate proficiency causes the obsessed to journey across another bridge and identify with a “being for others”. The discussion is situated in a modern world rendered liquid through change and the need to change. The illiquid being in a liquid modernity is insoluble and precipitates. The discouraged worker is such an illiquid being in itself.