Locks

padlock on green

I'm reading Bachelard's Poetics of Space at the moment. It's a fascinating work that looks at intimate spaces like nests, shells, corners and so on. He explores both the physicality and the experiential quality of these spaces in great detail. Here he talks about the lock: "It is not merely a matter of keeping a possession well guarded. The lock doesn't exist that could not resist absolute violence, and all locks are an invitation to thieves. A lock is a psychological threshold." Bachelard also has some memorable lines on home-spaces: "...our house is our corner of the world" and "...all really inhabited space bears the essence of the nature of home." I suppose I'm wondering how these illuminating perspectives tie in with our experience of virtual spaces - how when I go to those familiar online spaces from this unfamilar place (Campbell River, Vancouver Island) I am, in a sense, at home.