Thinking It Out

I wrote too late last night; I am going to try to elaborate now that it is the middle of the next day, and I have had two cups of coffee.

First of all, proxemics and personal space are not exactly the same thing. Proxemics is a word coined by an anthropologist named Edward Hall to describe the relationship between personal space and culture. That too is simplified, but less so. Basically I am interested in the ways in which the space we inhabit, carve out, move through and isolate ourselves in affects who we are and society at large historically and more so now, at this particular point in time, when the rules for and modes of communication are changing more rapidly than we can process them.

My interest in the notion of "the regular," as embodied by my father, and less so, in his model, me, is rooted in my interest in the way we create a world in which we can live. All people, or almost all people, need human contact for survival. We have all seen the studies that indicate that the quality of our relationships is a major factor of longevity. This makes sense to me. Many of us took college Sociology courses and read Durkeim; I still remember my red paperback copy of Suicide and my early thoughts on isolation. This notion, of needing contact for survival, comes into play in so many arenas of ancient and modern life: religion, urban versus suburban versus rural dwelling, colonialization, expansion, travel, community, education, and on and on. I want to home in on some specific, even personal ways this is made manifest in order to shed light on both our need and its origins, and ways in which we can use our relationship to personal space to improve our own lives and the overlapping worlds we create that together make our World.

That sounds lofty, said like that. Think smaller, back to the concept of "the regular." One can think of a regular as a sort of neighborhood schlub, along the lines of Clif or Norm on Cheers, who seemed extensions of their barstools. But a regular is a creature of habit; there is an involuntary component to this behavior, much in the way an inveterate thrill seeker is merely meeting his needs, acting out his nature.

A regular, then, is a person who for some intrinsic need requires consistency, reinforcement, the sight of the same faces, sound of the same voices, in order to feel safe, comfortable or at ease. When my dad makes his daily rounds--coffee shop, doggie day care, office, post office, YMCA and so on--he is doing what he needs to do, sure, but he is doing it in a way that provides familiar and comforting signposts, a kind of structure, with boundaries and borders, in which he can live.

Everybody doesn't do this, although most of us do to some extent. Some people draw the borders of their world too close, become so-inward looking that their little halo of space threatens to suffocate them. Others cannot draw the borders at all and become rootless, floaters, the aforementioned thrill-seekers with no limitations ever reining them in. The trick, I think, is to achieve a balance: to find the right amount space in which to make a life.

This concept is larger than that of "the regular." And maybe the regular is not the best way to talk about it. I'm not sure I am making my thoughts more clear, or less. Because personal space is so complicated, so multifaceted--it affects the way I sit at and arrange my desk, the two feet around me in every direction as I write, the way I arrange my home, the rooms I move through over the course of a day, the way I navigate my neighborhood, the way I venture forth into the world outside my daily patterns.

And I haven't even touched on the notion of how our personal space affects the ways we do and don't bump up against other people and their personal space: when the spaces intersect, and why. And the ways our technological advances have both narrowed or even eliminated the spaces between us, as well as made them impossibly, unfathomably large.

Yikes. Next time I will rein in myself, talk particulars. Interested?