Personal space.

How close to other humans you are comfortable being.


I have lived in downtown Toronto for more than forty years but lately I have often felt very bothered with how close to me other people stand and walk.

My guess is that part of this is just that the city is so much more crowded in recent years that there just isn't enough space for people to stay farther away.

Also, in a city full of people from different cultures around the planet many of them come from places where the boundaries of personal space are smaller.

And maybe just being an old person makes me less tolerant of others.


I'm not saying that anyone is "wrong".

I'm just observing one way that the world has changed.
And that it is a way that leaves me even less comfortable functioning in it.

Everyone should have money available to them,  in the own name,  that no one else can touch.



Many see money in terms of things it can buy for them.




I see it as freedom.

To have enough money that you don't need to rely on anyone else for support,  or need to work,  is to me freedom.  

No matter what your standard of living.




I wish I had learned this sooner than I did.

But I did learn it.

And in time.

I suppose every family or group has at least one.


The sort of person who can't rest if someone has something they don't.

Who has to somehow get part (or most or all) of what someone else has.

Who will manipulate and scheme and plan and plot and whine and hint until they get their share.

Who has this sense of entitlement to what others have achieved or earned.

For whom a fair share or an equal part is never enough.



Who will never rest until they get what they "deserve".

Who totally and utterly believe they are entitled to whatever it is.



Who will happily see their target left with just enough.
Or even not enough.


And who often,

after they get "it",

will just waste it.

When I was downsizing my 2000 plus book collection one thing that helped me part with them was making a list.

Similar to photographing items before removing them from your life.

(Photographing each book is a possibility but for me was not necessary.)

Now when people are over for the first time after I've discarded a piece of furniture they may look at the space where it used to be but they no longer make any comment.


Nice.

I do not understand.


I do not understand.


I do not understand.

Upgrades, updates, new releases, new versions, new phones, new tablets....


I often wonder,


Is it really better?


Or just different.