Time & Place

Today in my English course we discussed the idea of time and place while analyzing a short essay. The essay being, "Dwelling: making peace with space and place" by Deborah Tall. We talked mostly about how people identify with the local or more specifically, how our "Self" is made up largely of where we identify as "home". The idea that we associate strongly with a time and place is not a new idea; however, to what extent these factors influence who we are as an individual is something that struck me today.  In Tall's work, she provides us an example of a town which was wiped off the maps, and removed from the earth by the German army during World War II. A Jewish woman returned to the area after the war to find that everything she once knew was gone, and believed it worse than the death of her family.

When we are born the first thing we learn is where we live and our surroundings. As children we explore the woods, alleys, streams, and from these adventures, we begin to define our perception of the world. This is the foundation from which we build our world around. If we think of our personality, or even our belief of what the world contains in a hierarchical structure, it is simple to see how a large part of one's overall  "Self" can be directly rooted in their place of origin. But the question which is persistently eating away at me is, "What happens to the individual's perception when the foundation of all he or she knows is obliterated out of existence?".  Think of the 1900's when the average person was thrust out of their home to fight in a world war or was subjected to horrible governmental abuse of power in such cases as Soviet Russia, or Communism China. It is well documented that those who survived these long ordeals returned to their homes and found them unrecognizable. Even soldiers today sometimes after long deployments find it hard to reconnect with their original homes. This dissociation of place and time leads to great mental anguish. This has lessened in the past 60 years largely due to the fact people have become much more "rootless". The concept of rootless is complex and this post has become rather long so I am going to end my thoughts for now, perhaps I will return to it later with a more refined paper... for now anyway I have to go to class....