Sketching it Out

Hmm. I need another day or two to process the comments on yesterday's post. I am a little perplexed, to be honest, both by the fact that this particular post drew the most comments I've received so far, as well as by the nature of some of the comments. I will address properly after I've thought about my reactions a little more.

But because I am now feeling self-conscious about being judged "lazy" I will rein myself in and try to be focused and directed in this one post, anyway; Anonymi: this one's for you.

I guess it's time to start pulling together some of the writing I have done here, along with some of the research and writing I have done off-blog, for my book proposal on Personal Space. Before I begin actually organizing, though, I want to talk a little more about the idea and how I anticipate a book on this subject taking shape. Or maybe just throw out some of the themes that are shaping up as I think it through.

I think the book would start on the level of the individual as part of a family: how we form our sense of self in space, in the space of our formative "group" and in our first home. It would get larger in scope as it went on, moving out to the community--the communities we become a part of, even in terms of nationality--and then beyond, to the individual as part of the human family and the ways in which technology and the modern world affect and are affected by the concept of personal space.

Argh. Terribly put. I know what I mean in my head; I really need to come up with some less vague and amorphous ways of talking about this. Let me get a little more specific.

I am interested in the constant push and pull we have between privacy and intimacy, solitude and community. And the way we carve it out in our own homes, with our children, with our spouses, with our parents, with our friends and colleagues, in every relationship that matters. And the trend toward urban living and the "modern day village" and college dormitories and the real and documented gender differences in the way we monitor and occupy space.

I see this as a subject that needs to be assessed from a variety of angles and given historical context. America was founded, in a way, on the idea of personal space, and the transcendentalists were consumed by it too. Is our personal space being eroded by technology or are we simply finding new and different ways to carve it out thanks to technology? How does a human being achieve the necessary balance: we are born alone, we die alone, but we spend every single moment of every single day living in a world full to the bursting point with other people.

This is all very general; I recognize that. But I was very open about the fact that I intend to use this blog as a way of hammering out my work for myself. That is what I am doing here.