There are some days when everything seems to go wrong from the moment we wake up, usually begins with one bad event that we allow to affect our state of mind. That event leads to another, and then another and before you know it, the world looks like a horrible place in our eyes. Even though, nothing in the world created our misery...it was our response!
I grew up in a very rural county in NC. When I say rural I mean a county of only 5,000 people. Things seemed to move slower in my hometown and when you left the county and traveled 50 miles you were in culture shock! I left home to attend college and found myself back to my hometown where I now have made my home. I felt out of place when I left home. I was oblivious to the things that were going in the world because I was being sheltered in my own hometown. I was finding my self judging people that I did not know just by their dress and actions. While in school I associated with people who I went to high school with and really not many other people.
My personal experiences have affected me as a whole person! Edward T. Hall has stated it perfect in his book
The Hidden Dimension, "how people are feeling toward each other at the time is a decisive factor in the distance used." "We sense other people as close or distant, but we cannot always put our fingers on what it is that enables us to characterize them as such." I found myself recalling some situations this week that were stated in
The Hidden Dimension. For instance, on page 123, Hall describes social distance at the work place. With an office of three agents we have a lot of people coming and going asking questions, so they sit out front with our administrative assistant until we are ready for them to come into their office. I see now why our administrative assistant feels awkward when someone is sitting in those chairs. They are sitting too close to her desk!
"A proxemic feature of social distance (far phase) is that it can be used to insulate or screen people from each other..."
if the receptionist is less than ten feet from another person, even a stranger, she will be sufficiently involved to be virtually compelled to converse. Needless to say we moved the chairs.
Also in
The Hidden Dimension, Hall discusses semifixed-feature space. He has a diagram of a table with six different distances and orientations of the bodies in relation to each other. The "across the corner" conversations were the most frequent, then the "side by side" and then the "across the table." After reading that I started studying myself and others during lunch, meetings and just studying other peoples houses. Me and my husband sit at the dinner table "across the corner, " children at my workshop this week spoke more to the person "side by side" and hardly ever to the one "across the table." My furniture in my living room is set like an "L" with a couch and a chair (like the "across the corner"). WHY IS THIS? Is it because it is my husband that I am talking to at the table and is it because the kids sitting side-by-side are friends! No matter what structuring of semi-fixed features can have an effect on behavior.
