Sometimes words are interesting because their roots are abstract, and sometimes they’re interesting because their original meaning is so literal. Disorient belongs to this second category. It comes from the French désorienter, which means “to cause to lose one’s bearings,” or more literally, “to turn from the east.”
The reference to east points back to the Latin Oriri, which makes up ‘orient’ and means ‘to rise.’ Orientation, our sense of grounded-ness in direction, comes from knowing the sun rises in the east. Witnessing the consistency of natural phenomena orients us.
At the base of the word is a naturalistic understanding of the world and how we operate in it. It ties our wellbeing to a connection with nature. Though ‘orient’ comes to signify the far east, it is not first the far east and all the images we now associate with it, but simply the place in which the sun rises. When we know where we are in relation to the sun’s journey, our own journey is also given direction.
Fast forward to the modern usage of ‘disorient’ or ‘disoriented,’ and we see very little connection with the natural world. The literal definition is “having lost one’s sense of direction,” or “confused and unable to think clearly.” Yes, we can still be physically disoriented--for instance, upon landing in a foreign country--but we tend to use it more to express a mental, spiritual, or emotional disorientation. To have your heart broken disorients. To lose a job, or fight with a friend, disorients us. What it shares with its etymological roots is the sense of there being a rupture in how things ought to be, an unwelcome disturbance in the linear progression we’ve imagined for the future and presumed would unfold accordingly. We are disoriented when the world doesn’t line up with our image of the world.
We can also be disoriented in relationship to ourselves. This is possible because of the twoness (or more) of self: that we are always what we are and also what we are telling ourselves about what we are. Sometimes these versions of self run close to one another, sometimes at odd angles. When they veer off, they can lay trip wires that leave us disoriented.
What I find comforting is how ancient and timeless the best methods for re-orienting self are. A return to our breath. Paying attention to the natural world around us. Reconnecting with, as the cliche goes, “what really matters.” If we stray too far from these things for too long, it’s no wonder we become disoriented. But our straying doesn’t threaten their reality: what grounds us, what orients, is consistent and present, if we are willing and brave enough to return to it.
Words by Finnegan Shepard: www.finneganshepard.omc
Images by Bella Porter: www.bella-porter.com