Let’s be honest, some people take up more space than others.
Beyond the pure physicality of volume, height, width and mass some people just take up a certain space incongruous to their size.
Whether it’s a protruding elbow jabbing into your midsection on an already cramped and crowded bus, a sticky, sweaty leg pressed up against your own or an individual stepping into the boundaries of an unmarked but clearly defined area deemed as personal.
People sprawl, they expand, they spread themselves out, they can be either big or small, simply stated they just take up space.
Space. The area, which an object occupies, or conversely the physical distance between objects. What is yours? What is mine? What is shared?
Each culture can provide an appropriate response to each of these ideas. Beyond culture however, there lies a more fundamental question, which oddly enough pairs together practicality and perception: How much space does one need to live?
The short practical answers would be “Enough.”
The longer, more perceptive answer would be “As much as it takes.”
The space that we need to live. How much is necessary? How is it determined?
These are grand assumptions, that tend to be taken for granted and reckoned more on what we want and what we can afford rather than what is of absolute necessity.
In terms of residential real estate square feet or meters are used. While agriculture will talk in terms of hectares. A hectare is a one hundred square meters or for ease of mental imagery, two professional size soccer fields placed side by side. Each are valid units of measure which present quite contrastive implications.
Suspending the effects of location on overall cost, a house of a certain size will fetch a certain price proportional to the amount of space it takes up. Two floors, three floors, 1500 sq feet, 2500 sq feet, 5000 sq, feet etc. Correspondingly, the larger the tract of arable land, the higher its asking price.
Here is the rub however, unless you reside in a doorjamb, the laws of physics dictate that you can only be in one room at any given time. Across time however, again being honest with ourselves, within our own particular domicile we like to move around.
Leaving the one room farm house firmly in the American past or precariously constructed in the developing world countryside, the basic components of a modern house include a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom and a common room. A bedroom for each corresponding family member has become de rigueur in today’s house hunting experience, the outsized master bedroom accommodating the matriarch and patriarch of the household of course.
Now, what else is needed: a living room? a den? a formal dining room? an attic? a basement? a garage (of the two or three car variety)? a front hall? a sun room? a breezeway? Perhaps we can even add in a walk-in closet.
The point is not affordability, for that is an easy one to answer, we can afford the house or we cannot, if not to put into practice. The point rather is of necessity: How much space do we truly need to live?
Again, the practically minded answer says “Enough,” while the perceptive answer says “As much as it takes.” Both can indeed be right, but which is most appropriate?
Stepping out of the front, side or back door and returning to the agriculture landscape a farmer is perplexed by the same question: How much space do we truly need to live:
One hectare, two hectares, five, ten, twenty hectares?
His query becomes a bit more specific and consequential however. Will the crops I produce from a certain hectare of land be sufficient to feed myself for the entire year? Will it be sufficient to feed my family? How many pounds of seed are needed to produce a certain ton of crops. How many rows of crops should be left for future seed supply, while how many should be dedicated for animal feed? These are questions most college educated individuals and over eager real estate agents could only guess at but subsistence farmers must get right year in and year out for continued personal survival.
Being tied to the land makes the calculation of one’s Space to Live obligatory. It is essential to their existence. Fortunately, for most of us, our own Space to Live calculation can be taken with much more leisure and luxury.
