Damn you that’s my spot, I bet you have felt this way at some point today never mind your life. I’m always surprised, even by my own reaction, as to how quickly we can nest in a space that technically we have no claim to.
Parking garages are the stupidest and yet one of the most powerful example of this. I use the local train station as you might know and I park in the same spot every day…EVERY DAY. I love that spot, its mine, we have a beautiful relationship. Unless I get there 5 minutes late then this damn red Audi parks there, it has no respect for me, my spot or the love we share. The spot isn’t mine and yet I feel like ramming the bastard for some small feeling justice and satisfaction.
Sometimes I start to believe that the universe is well out of balance but this kind of stuff happens all the time. But why?!, why do we attach ourselves to a space so easily? and why does it bother us so much? I can only guess it is because we changed from a nomadic lifestyle to settlers. We pick a sport, we settle in it, we personalize and individualize it. We humans like our spaces safe and secure and the feeling that someone has used it, made their mark on it, rubbed their scent all over it, it sickens us…well some of us anyway.
And why ? To have a consistent feeling of belonging that’s why. It has become so important to most of us to have a place we can call “home” that where ever we go we need to be in this space to function well. It affects our performance and relations. There is nothing worse that feeling like an outside to skew one’s participation in the village. Try it out and see, just mess with someone’s personal space and watch them flounder for a day in the chaos that has now enveloped their fiefdom.
Damn it I just got home and what do I find ? My wife on my favorite couch? With my favorite coffee mug? Smiling at me with a silly grin…because she knows…ohhh she knows what she’s doing to me, and she doesn’t feel the least bit of compassion for me, my mug or my spot. The chaos has arrived.
Mind, on the rocks?! 