It's always been a thing of mine: I love to see people's rooms. What people tell you in conversation and what they reveal of themselves through their actions is only part of the picture. In a persons rooms there's so damn much info. Books: Which ones look new and oly for show, and which ones are battered and bent and obviously read so much they're a part of who that person is. In girls case, makeup and jewelry and lotions and potions, hom much does it take for them to manufacture the face that they show the world?
I look at posters and pictures, what things attract them in the physical and aesthetic sense? Is there any kind of religious propaganda spread about? Who do they put in framed pictures to remind them every day and who is relegated to memories in photo albums? Do they keep journals and the detrius of life? Do they want to remember? I've known people who try and start a clean existence every day, constantly on to the newest taste and feeling and adventure without allowing any of it to leave a mark, and I've known people who keep every ticket stub and scrap of life that they can manage to hold onto.
It's one of the ways I get to really know people, I'm good at reading what they write and extrapolating from that, but who would write down such basic parts of their personality? People write for themselves, not others. I can't be in a conversation and try and deduce it from that either. You can't read a paragraph, or talk to someone and find out that they're a packrat, or that they're a slb, or a neatfreak. You can see so much by how people try to affect their immediate surroundings and enviroment that they live in every day.
Maybe it's too little exposure to a varied society as a kid, cause for a world traveller I was incredibly naive and sheltered. But travelling is what tought me all this. In any country, temples and homes and the little stores and businesses that a foreigner wouldn't even know is there represents the true people and spirit of the place. Not the big gaudy temples that pander to the tourists love of the unknown, but the quiet synagogue on the corner and the family run store that's been in one family for generations.
I love to be in a little space crammed with life and personality versus an open, stylishly spare space with nothing substantial to sink my teeth into. Sterile enviroments are all well and good for a doctors office, but I think any kind of constant exposure would drive me completely batty.
Meru at 8:22 PM