Occupy Yourself

I read somewhere that humans are the only creatures which judge one another not according to their actual behaviour but against what we feel is their potential, an ideal that the person may or may not live up to.  Actually, having said that I'm not sure if it makes sense to say that any animal other than humans really 'judges' itself or other creatures at all, I suspect that itself is a peculiarly human trait.  Nevertheless, it does seem to be true that when we make evaluations of one another we do it primarily by measuring what we see against what we think is possible.  School report cards (do schools still issue report cards?) carry phrases such as 'could do better' and army recruitment posters promise that a few years in uniform will make you 'all that you can be'.  It's almost as if we posit ourselves behaving in situations in a certain way, an ideal way, the way of the master maybe, and then evaluate our actual selves according to how closely our actions match up to that standard, or how far they fall below it.

This sounds like a recipe for low-esteem and continual disappointment, but perhaps there's a way of thinking about it which is less condemnatory and more affirming.  One way to look at it might be to think of ourselves not as these dual beings stretched between a high ideal and the fallen flesh but as the ground on which being might walk (does this make any sense?)  Maybe we can imagine ourselves as the spaces of history and culture; Wall Street, Trafalgar Square, St. Paul's Cathedral; with our constant identities built into the cities of life by the processes of life.  We are each architecture and town planning, red tape and back-handers, resource management and natural erosion.  What goes on inside us and through us, in our rooms and corridors, is rarely visible to us but we often get a feeling that it's not all for the good.  These edifices and facades that are our selves were put together from plans that we had no part in drawing up, and are maintained by systems we are not accountable for.  The purposes of these buildings, if they have purpose at all, is either beyond our ken or operating outside of human scale, and we often feel the pointlessness of the bricks and mortar that make us up. Ivy may grow on the outside but the basement is home for mildew, and there are dark streaks of damp mould in the kitchens and bathrooms of our being.  There is no janitor to take of these problems, and no man from the council is going to come round and sort out our plumbing.  When the doors swing open on creaking hinges there is no-one to apply the squirt of oil or fix the lock.

These buildings cry out for occupation.  Where governance by the universe fails to make effective machines for living there is hope only in the personal touch.  The loving hand of a curator and the warm body of a tenant is needed to put this little world to rights.  In this troubled township any occupant is better than none and the rowdiest most unreliable squatter is superior to any architectural ideal.  Let the cry go out that here are the buildings that we need to occupy, these crumbling ruins of people empty and unloved need inhabitants and we should each make a home there.  Let's go together into the darkness of these hovels and palaces and sweep the dust from the floor.  Let's wipe the windows and unstraighten the furniture.  These rooms are for adventure and their coldness will soon dissipate with the press of flesh.  Go in, make your self a home, make a home at yourself, and be fully and completely occupied.