Own House

It's a lonely night,

and the darkness shines,

I step on the streets,

and its all quiet,

With the twinkling stars,

and the dim moonlight,

I keep to the pavements,

and try to walk upright,

The road is long,

and the walk is hard,

But in the end it's all worthwhile,

as the road finally leads me to my house.

The association of the emotional aspect of a house to an individual is both amazing and strange at the same time. I would call it a really fascinating aspect of the human evolution. And what makes this even more universal is its equivocal acceptance across different cultures.

Probably it could be due to the inherited characteristics from our ancestors. The house could symbolize stability and protection to the male and the reason for a female to be attracted to him. The moment the male becomes strong enough to break away and start an independent existence for him the house is the first thing that gives him his identity. This could have been the case for years for our ancestors. But things changed with the development of the civilized society model. But the traits inherited are still not lost, they just lie dormant.

Even now the need for an own house is the considered the basic necessity of life. Most people spend their entire existence in pursuing their dream of owning a house. The dream that is pursued with all vigor, energy, enthusiasm, pain and sacrifice. The efforts and the pain are both enjoyed. This is bizarre but I have seen numerous people who feel proud to have gone through this choice of pursuit. How something that is just a wall around some empty space can infuse so much life into a living soul is worth the admiration!

In my most recent conversation, with a dear friend who is also a proud house owner, I realized that the house is probably not a non living entity. It is a chronicle of the struggle of the family that lived under its roof, a family that shared its joy and happiness, growing up of their kids, their grievance and compassion in sorrow, the memory of their existence, etc…etc. It could be just a house for someone who looks at it from outside but for that family it is their identity, their life.

And just by looking at the face of my friend while he was talking about his house, I realized that in the end it is really worth all that pain and struggle. Probably much more worth than that struggle!