Where is the "Flatland"?

Dear Reader, you might have wondered where “Flatland” is actually located. Obviously, a flatlander must come from somewhere...

Actually, there are several answers to this.

1.  Indiana (my home state) and most of the region around the Great Lakes, which is mostly level farmland.

2.  According to the Urban Dictionary, a Flatlander is what residents of Wisconsin call visitors from Illinois. Or what Northern Pennsylvanians call visitors from south of Interstate 80. Or what Vermont residents call everyone else.   So these places could be Flatland.

3.  A fictional place from an 1884 story by English author, Edwin Abbott, titled “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions”.

The following excerpt from Wikipedia explains the plot of the tale and reveals where flatlanders come from:

“The story is about a two-dimensional world referred to as Flatland which is occupied by geometric figures, line segments (females) and regular polygons with various numbers of sides. The narrator is a humble Square, a member of the social caste of gentlemen and professionals in a society of geometric figures, who guides us through some of the implications of life in two dimensions. The square has a dream about a visit to a one-dimensional world (Lineland) which is inhabited by "lustrous points." He attempts to convince the realm's ignorant monarch of a second dimension but finds that it is essentially impossible to make him see outside of his eternally straight line.

The narrator is then visited by a three-dimensional sphere, which he cannot comprehend until he sees Spaceland for himself. This sphere, who remains nameless, visits Flatland at the turn of each millennium to introduce a new apostle to the idea of a third dimension in the hopes of eventually educating the population of Flatland of the existence of Spaceland. From the safety of Spaceland, they are able to observe the leaders of Flatland secretly acknowledging the existence of the sphere and prescribing the silencing of anyone found preaching the truth of Spaceland and the third dimension. After this proclamation is made, many witnesses are massacred or imprisoned (according to caste).

After the Square's mind is opened to new dimensions, he tries to convince the Sphere of the theoretical possibility of the existence of a fourth (and fifth, and sixth ...) spatial dimension. Offended by this presumption and incapable of comprehending other dimensions, the Sphere returns his student to Flatland in disgrace.

He then has a dream in which the Sphere visits him again, this time to introduce him to Pointland. The point (sole inhabitant, monarch, and universe in one) perceives any attempt at communicating with him as simply being a thought originating in his own mind:

'You see,' said my Teacher, 'how little your words have done. So far as the Monarch understand them at all, he accepts them as his own – for he cannot conceive of any other except himself – and plumes himself upon the variety of Its Thought as an instance of creative Power. Let us leave this God of Pointland to the ignorant fruition of his omnipresence and omniscience: nothing that you or I can do can rescue him from his self-satisfaction.'
— the Sphere

The Square recognizes the connection between the ignorance of the monarchs of Pointland and Lineland with his own (and the Sphere's) previous ignorance of the existence of other, higher dimensions.

Once returned to Flatland, the Square finds it difficult to convince anyone of Spaceland's existence, especially after official decrees are announced – anyone preaching the lies of three dimensions will be imprisoned (or executed, depending on caste). Eventually the Square himself is imprisoned for just this reason.”

4.  It is a state of mind.  To me, Flatland is a beautiful but dangerous ideal.  It can lead to such an almost militant conformity that its citizens can have a hard time even seeing it in themselves, like those in Abbott's tale.

So, with these four definitions of Flatland in mind, this blog hopes to make a few statements as it goes...

You see, the beauty of a Flatland is often hard to find; there are no oceans, few mountains, and a lot of distant horizons.  The splendor is subtle, to be found in simple things like the quiet sounds of nature and the simplicity and the vivid odors of the soil and creeks.

Or the beauty is so big that it is overlooked.  Like the spectacular view of the moon and galaxies on a clear night or being made insignificant by the grand vistas or the slow realization that the landscape is much more complex than originally thought.

Being in Flatland is ultimately this state of mind.  To me, it is being able to see the stunning sights in the middle of a dull world.  It is being able to simultaneously notice the big things and small things and connect them together.  It is finally being able to realize that there are other dimensions under our noses, and it is being able to respect it all because it simply exists.