I slowly made my way through the crowd, trying to reach the front gate.
It was New Year’s Day and I was heading to a hockey game with my friends. But not just any hockey game. An outdoor hockey game.
Events like this only happen a few times a year in hockey. And one had never before come to my neck of the woods.
Because of that, this had been the hottest ticket in town. And I was lucky enough to snag some tickets before they sold out.
But right now, I wasn’t feeling so lucky.
I was stuck in a crush of people, with barely an inch of space in any direction. There were thousands of us trying to make it through the main entrance of the stadium, which had become a massive bottleneck.
As the throng made its slow approach, I was filled with anxiety. Would I be separated from my friends? Would the throng of people send me to the wrong part of the stadium? Would I get trampled, or worse?
About 20 nerve-wracking minutes later, we made it into the stadium. I took several deep breaths before continuing up the ramp to our seats.
Never again, I thought.
Few items are more sensitive to us than personal space.
Whether we’re from wide-open spaces or cramped cities, we crave it. We desire it. We depend on it.
Now, to be clear, we’ve long been able to get by in a pinch. In times of normalcy, we’ve packed into that crowded train car or bravely got in that two-hour line for a ride at Disney World, if the situation demanded it.
(Obviously, this behavior no longer applies at the moment I’m writing this.)
But just because we’ve traditionally been able to manage close quarters doesn’t mean we enjoyed the experience. Quite the contrary.
We are most comfortable when we are within our bubble. When we have an arm’s length of space between us and the nearest person. We demand permission for others to get within this bubble, and we don’t like it when people invade our space without invitation.
This is not conjecture. Our brains are wired to treat the violation of our personal space as a threat.
This is why it’s common to see people take a step back when someone gets in their face. Or to see people reflexively sticking an arm out to keep intruders away.
Our bubbles are sacred. And we must protect them at all costs.
The bubble has been part of our physiology for millennia. But recently, it’s become part of our identity.
With the boom in technology and media options, we extend our bubble to every aspect of our lives. We can choose what to engage with and what to believe. We can create our ideal reality.
This is a mixed blessing.
Choice brings diversity. And through the process of choosing, we can express our individualism.
Yet, choice can also bring divisiveness. Particularly if we fail to respect the viability of alternative options.
So, as we settle into our bubbles, the world fractures — split into billions of tiny fiefdoms. And any time our bubbles collide, fireworks could ensue.
Such confrontations were once sporadic. Even in more primitive times, the etiquette of respecting personal space was widely understood.
But now, the tensions are constant.
The Internet is always on. And the friction between conflicting bubbles percolates — like a >Hatfield-McCoy feud.
Worse, the Internet culture has percolated society at large in recent years. Polarization is as bad as it’s ever been. And there are few refuges from it.
Sure, our particular bubble could be off the grid, in a cabin in Montana. But for most of us, that’s not the reality.
So, we must face this friction. And we must recon with the discomfort it causes us.
The universe has an uncanny knack for calling our bluff.
At the outdoor hockey game, I said that I wouldn’t subject myself to crowds again.
I didn’t truly mean what I said. And yet, it still came to pass.
When the world plunging into a pandemic, crowds have eviscerated. Events have been cancelled. And our personal space bubbles have expanded.
Health experts have now recommended about two arm’s lengths of space between people, for safety reasons. And with many regions under quarantine, there have been fewer opportunities for people to intrude upon that expanded personal space.
In a world full of uncertainty and restlessness, this has been a rare bright spot. A rare sense of calm in a storm of anxiety.
And yet, as we move apart physically, we are also doing so virtually.
We are becoming more set in our ways, and our interpretations of reality. And we are growing ever more intolerant of alternative viewpoints.
Behind computer and smartphone screens, we are getting bolder. More extreme. Less measured.
And with in-person interaction on hiatus, we lack accountability. We don’t have to moderate our behavior to be accepted in public, because there’s no in public to speak of.
This is dangerous. And it flies in the face of precedent.
Indeed, the personal space bubble is only meant to provide protection, not fortification.
Sure, we feel uncomfortable when others get too close. But it does us no good to be too far removed either.
The quiet camaraderie of a shared experience is critical to our sense of security. It’s as important as the tacit understanding that strangers won’t get within an inch of our face.
But by hunkering down in our bubbles — even in the midst of a shared global experience — we take a machete to this ideal. We prop ourselves up at the expense of society.
The time has come to change course.
The time has come for us to be introspective of our behavior. To be empathetic toward the plight of those who differ from us. To be committed to our supporting role in a shared narrative.
The time has come for us to be more trusting. To be less vindictive. To be open to vulnerability.
The time has come for us to be better stewards of society.
It’s easy to hide from this responsibility, with altered reality and dire circumstances in our present. It’s easy to retreat further into our bubbles, as a turtle retreats into its shell.
But we must resist this temptation.
What we do today impacts tomorrow. And a tomorrow dotted with bubbles of isolation is a bleak one. A tomorrow of togetherness is far more promising.
Let’s make it happen.