MySpace

Generally, when I am looking inward and analyzing myself, I do it from a Judeo-Christian perspective (Am I nice? Am I honest? Are my thoughts pure?) or I may do it from a psychoanalytic perspective (Did my mother cause this? Am I meeting the needs of my inner child? Am I just hopelessly screwed?). Up to this point, I have not often analyzed my quirks and idiosyncrasies from a bio-evolutionary perspective. But hey, I am open-minded, whatever works! This week after reading What is Art For? by Ellen Dissanyake and The Silent Language and The Hidden Dimension by Edward Hall I am coming to understand that some behavioral roots go much deeper than my parents.

One area in which we may be more in tune with our animal ancestors than we like to admit is in the area of territoriality. Edward Hall explains, “Every living thing has a physical boundary that separates it from its external environment, beginning with bacteria and ending with humans...A short distance up the phylogenetic scale, however another, non-physical boundary appears that exists outside the physical one. This new boundary is harder to delimit than the first but is just as real. We call this the organisms” territory.” To simplify I will just call it MySpace. Cats mark MySpace, Dogs defend MySpace, and birds return each year to MySpace. I am just realizing that I also have a MySpace that at times elicits an almost primal response when it is violated.

Mr. Hall then continues on, “Most American women have very strong feelings about their kitchens. Even a mother can’t come in and wash the dishes in her daughter’s kitchen without annoying her. The kitchen is the place where ‘who will dominate’ is settled. All women know this, and some an even talk about it. Daughters who can’t keep control of their kitchen will be forever under the thumb of any woman who can move into this area.”

I will not go so far as to keep anyone who wishes from coming into my kitchen and washing my dishes, but I believe Mr. Hall’s point does ring a chord of truth with all of us. We each have a MySpace which is our territory that when violated brings out an often suppressed emotional response. For the guys it may be their garage or workbench. Even kids have a closet or drawer that, no matter how messy, they do no want to be disturbed. I recently had an experience that drove this concept home to me even though at the time I couldn’t put a finger on my reaction. We recently bought a vacation home from the bank. It wasn’t a conventional transaction and several parties were involved including the financial institution and a bitterly, divorcing couple. Several weeks after closing on the property, the wife came to pick up a large pile of belongings that had been left in the home. After inviting her in she went in the kitchen and began to open cupboards and drawers as if looking for something. I even surprised myself with the strong emotional feelings I had. I very firmly told her that her things were no longer in the kitchen and she needed to leave immediately. In the jungle we would have been just two lionesses defending the territory we both claimed as our own. I could feel the hair on my neck rising and the adrenalin surging through my system. I recognized this feeling as one that I had experienced at other times in my life when someone has invaded MySpace.

Whether your MySpace is the area immediately around your body, a favorite chair or a whole bedroom that you call your own, it is important that you recognize it for what it is. It is also important that we understand MySpace as it relates to other members of our family and to our culture as a whole. Reactions to violations of MySpace aren’t always kind, they aren’t always logical but they certainly are natural.