And God said, ‘Let there be Light.” And there was light. God didn’t add, “Let there be Space.” If He had, a lot of our problems in life could have been avoided. There is a severe lack of space on this planet; which by itself is now gasping for breath, as most of its spaces are getting occupied, crowded and polluted.
Everywhere I look there are hordes of people jostling for space- on the roads where vehicles swerve and edge past each other, invading space or trying to establish their own, on sidewalks where people bump and elbow past each other clearing space for themselves so that they don’t tread upon the space meant for the 5-ton bus bearing down upon them. A lot of people don’t care either way, which is why one sees pedestrians strolling across busy roads and two-wheelers whizzing down pavements (more so during traffic jams) and nobody seems to mind.
Builders have built their own empires from just providing space for people to live and work in. Going by the speed at which these spaces are being demarcated and constructed upon, they are sure to run out of space and then where will they all go? To outer space, I’m told, as scientists are already considering the possibility of other planets where life could be sustained, since life here may soon become impossible anyway. In that case, men being from Mars and women from Venus could well become a reality.
So much for the wide, open spaces of the great Outdoors, which seems to be turning into a vast Indoors, because when we go ‘out’, all we do is go into a mall, theatre, restaurant or at best a resort-another so-called open space with its own little cordoned off area that’s further divided into more spaces for ‘dining’, ‘jogging’, ‘playing’, or even ‘meditating’ or just ‘seating’. We are so spatially-challenged that we don’t realise the chaos that would ensue if the space meant for ‘jogging’ were to be mistakenly used for ‘meditation’ or vice-versa. Hence the need for labelling, I suppose.
Closer home, there’s the much coveted ‘parking’ space that becomes a bone of contention in residential areas. We truly believe that if God had meant us to walk, He would not have given Man the brains for the invention of the wheel. Every household has as many vehicles as there are members (sometimes more). Each vehicle is age-appropriate so there are strollers, tricycles, bicycles with and without training wheels, motorcycles and of course, the now indispensable car. All these require their own space which poses a serious problem since the parking spaces are allotted based on the number of flats one owns and not the vehicles!
As for within the house-space is always at a premium. From siblings bickering over shared room and cupboard space to adults needing their own private space where they can retreat after a long tiring day in other spaces known as the ‘workplace’, home is where the space is! And I haven’t even mentioned the objects that also occupy this space and how they mysteriously expand to fill all available space. That’ll keep for another time…and space!
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