Definition: Home
Home
Only three things are truly and purely universal experiences across the world: being born, living/surviving, and dying. Aside from these, each person experiences a very intimately and passionately individual life, at the mercy of infinite variables. The beauty of this intense global subjectivity lies in the relationship that one maintains between their consciousness and the physical world we all share. We are able to relate to each other through man-made, universal ideologies and concepts—often these govern our collective lives—but we will still never truly know what or how it is like to be anyone but ourselves. None of us have completely identical interpretations to each other as much as we have completely identical ideologies (to which we all subscribe to, in some way or other). Whether we speak the same language, occupy the same geographic space, pray to the same God, we will never share the same personal definitions of life even if we happen to be using the same terminology. A fitting example pertains to the word “home” and its subsequent dual qualities that result in a myriad of definitions that, once again, are at the mercy of infinite variables.“Home” is both a literal and figurative manifestation of a man-made ideology derivative of purpose, security, and safety. Of course, there remains a primal/animalistic understanding too, but for the sake of this paper, we will keep the word relative to man and civilization created by man. Before reaching a concise definition though, we must first face the challenges of wading through the (most) common dualities of “home” and how it inevitably differs for everyone therein after.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “home” was a term coined long before the turn of the first millennium. Through the ages it was, and to a large extent remains to, refer to a physical place where one resides. With modernity came a more “spiritual” interpretation, as the dictionary noted, that defines a home as a “place of origin associated with the feelings of belonging” (OED, entry 7). Overall, the Oxford English Dictionary provides 13 definitions for the noun “home” and a plethora relating to how “home” is used in popular English phrases like “Home sweet home” and “Home is where the heart is.”
Through examining these definitions, it is easy to see a pattern of duality when applying on an individual scale. A home can be something tangible, like a house, apartment, or building. Conversely, it can also be far more abstract than architecture, like a feeling, memory, or smell. A home can be permanent, or mobile. It can be one thing, or several. Furthermore, these dualities also function as dependent variables—which lends even more subjectivity to the term if one considers the influence of one’s geographic location and corresponding influence of society. I.e. politics, religions, war, stereotypes, physical landscapes, resources, traditions/customs, history, gender, sexuality, love, money, etc. With all of this in mind, we are able to get closer to a definition of “home” that tells us what it can be and what it can be like—which, ultimately, reflects the aforementioned notion of “home” being both literal and figurative.
Now, it feels at though we are back to where we started, in regard to attempting to understand the word “home,” which is precisely where we need to be. At the beginning. Because it is here, at a universal beginning, that we look to from the future and compare what we have known to what we have learned about each of our uniquely positioned lives. Every soul seemingly experiences this personal process. Perhaps, then, the only true definition (that almost every soul can agree with) involves this enigmatic starting point. Home is the place that one first wakes up to the sensations of existence, albeit joyous and fruitful OR war-torn and terrifying. No matter what, we are born into a sense of “belonging” simply because we were born at all. And then, we attach it to the place where we first came to be, our “origin,” because this is the place and feeling that we grew from and will forever compare to. This is what unifies the definition “home” without delving too deep into subjectivity. It is the very combined effect of the literal and the figurative that binds us together while also separately shaping us; it is the life we choose to live afterward that actually defines us. That defines for us personally the ideas of “home,” or a “home,” or even “homes,” after looking back to the beginning from which we can all, forever, relate.
Works Cited
"Home." Def. 13. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Oxford English Dictionary Online [Oxford UP]. Web. 9 Feb. 2016. <http://www.oed.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/view/Entry/87869?rskey=WqHAHi&result=1&isAdvanced=false>
