Humans love hierarchies and patterns, they pin butterflies to paraffin and we somehow feel that there is a place for everything…and everything in its place. As children we are encouraged to, “know your place” and we are subject to placement tests in most of our young years. We are arranged in a daisy chain and one’s position is contingent upon new factors we can’t understand. Factors like socio-economic status, race, physical development are the pins that fix us to the world’s expectations.
There is also pride of place. Wherever you are is the best place on earth… a New Yorker often takes irrational pleasure in touting the great city they live in. For some, New York is the biggest city on earth even though it is not in the top ten in population; this bloated view not only pumps up the Big Apple it also serves to diminish everything West of the Hudson River. In a real sense you are where you come from. Once, on a business trip, I drove through the canyon lands of Utah with a colleague from New York. He showed signs of genuine anxiety and I asked what was wrong. He said, “I am not used to vistas … I wouldn’t have believed that you could see for that many miles.” We are the products of our place… they are the limits of our vision.
We operate at great risk in the work world if we forget our place. We must stay in our lane and not presume that our answers are more elegant and effective that those placed above us in the corporation. I read about a commercial airliner that crashed because a co-pilot that had the answer to a life or death situation did not speak because one didn’t question the Captain. He certainly knew his place.
I have often wondered about the power of place to shape character. If you see magnificent mountains, deep green seas and beautiful flora every day does it actually contribute to the nobility of your personality? Do you more readily appreciate the abundance in life if you live hard by rolling fields of wheat? Perhaps.
My current place is 92128, a place for people who have been to many places, geographically and in their hearts. They have lost loved ones, had their share of achievements and defeats, have raised children…they give the place dimension and soul. I have placed myself here because there may be some nobility in the place. At the very least it is a ” hallowed place where my friend’s portraits hang.”
What a great place.
Olio Folio 