I am happy to report that the move, though difficult in many respects, has made a huge difference for me in my attitude and ability to deal effectively and nonviolently with annoying people and aggravating circumstances. It just goes to show, we all, but perhaps especially writers, need, in the words of Virginia Woolf, “a room of one’s own”. And that room has to have a sense of feeling safe, of being able to shut out the volume and harangues of the world, to be a little retreat where one is free to follow one’s thoughts to their conclusion without interruption or hurry, a meditative place where rules one finds incompatible with one’s own sense of self do not apply. I wonder at how families who are crowded 7 or 8 to a room manage. They must keep alot bottled up, but that can explode suddenly and unexpectedly sometimes; and I think forcing oneself to ignore one’s own thoughts and feelings in order to co-exist in such crowded conditions may lead to one ignoring the thoughts and feelings of others too, and then acting in inconsiderate ways without realizing it. When we cut off our own feelings, it is harder to empathize with those of others.

I wonder if crowding isn’t a large cause of the uncivil behavior we see in modern cities. The noise, the bumping into each other, the waiting in endless lines, it all makes us that much less tolerant of any small insults or misunderstandings. Studies with rats have shown that overcrowding leads to all kinds of aggressiveness and unusual acts including cannibalism.

So I am taking a course soon in Creative Approaches to Conflict. I’m hoping it will give me new ideas for dealing with people in this agitated, easily-rattled state without being drawn into that state myself, especially as I seek to serve again as an advocate for people whose opinions and needs have often been unheard and unmet.