Home

Could I posit that evil people–let us call them sadistic sociopaths–associate fear and pain with the sense of “home”, that we all need a home, and that their cruelty is rooted in a deep psychological need for it?  Of course: I just did posit it.  Turns out you can posit anything.

Home is an instinct.  It must be.  Geese flock together, and people need places they feel safe.  Safety and social connection are the core elements in a healthy home, and not coincidentally the two emotions absent from people who have endured psychological trauma.  If you do not feel safe anywhere, you have no home. If you cannot rest, you have no home.

As I heal–and I think I’ve mentioned this–I am feeling more and more keenly the importance of my emotional connection with the physical space I live in, how orderly it is, how connected I feel with its contents, and look and feel.  Women do this naturally because they are naturally more connected with their emotions and a sense of flow than men are.

And I got to thinking about the early Buddhist wandering mendicants, who roamed from village to village with a small rice bowl, which if they were lucky they might fill twice before noon rolled around and it was time to fast.  Were they homeless?  No.  They “took refuge” in their practice.  They lived in their practice.  A routine can be a sort of home. It can bring with it a sense of safety and connection and known-ness.  I feel this.

We call people on certain paths “lost souls”.  Why are they lost?  They cannot find a way home.  There are many songs about this.  It is common.  What does a religious conversion do?  It gives you a new home, and you are no longer lost.  Religio means bound, but could we not also say “held”?  Contained?  Sheltered?  Located?  Surrounded by the like-minded/like-practicing?  Do you not have a seat at the circle of that communities life?  We do not need religion, in my view, but we categorically need the feelings which they produce.

We are so fucking primitive.  So much more is possible.

Songs, because:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a2o5ykaPwc  Blind Faith “Can’t find my way home”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmCRnRTUl6U Hank Williams “Lost Highway”