A House Is Built By Hands, But A Home Is Built By Heart. “Home", without doubt, it's one of the most symbolic words in any language. Whether it's a suburban semi, igloo, yurt or a particular patch of desert, the familiarity and domesticity of home usually provides relief when you arrive. No matter what place one calls home, the very word strikes a chord deep inside every one of us. It revives specific memories and sparks a familiar essence that we are able to recall just by thinking of the combination of four simple letters. Home means sanctuary, the place where we can rest, relax, enjoy time with friends, learn, grow and just be. Our homes say a lot about who we are and what we think is important in life. Home holds a value way beyond anything that mere bricks and mortar might normally represent.
A House Is Built By Hands, But A Home Is Built By Heart - Essay
“Home", without doubt, it's one of the most symbolic words in any language. Whether it's a suburban semi, igloo, yurt or a particular patch of desert, the familiarity and domesticity of home usually provides relief when you arrive. No matter what place one calls home, the very word strikes a chord deep inside every one of us. It revives specific memories and sparks a familiar essence that we are able to recall just by thinking of the combination of four simple letters. Home means sanctuary, the place where we can rest, relax, enjoy time with friends, learn, grow and just be. Our homes say a lot about who we are and what we think is important in life. Home holds a value way beyond anything that mere bricks and mortar might normally represent.
But why is this so? What is it about being in a specific place that makes one feels so good? Why are being away from home so stressful for some that some psychologists once recognized homesickness as a potent progenitor of mental illness.
If one looks upon the dictionary, the word home means "the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household." But the true meaning of word 'home' goes beyond this. Home is where the family is, it is like a nest, the nucleus of one's life, the hub from which all daily experiences extend. Both as children and adults, our home and family are where we should feel most comfortable in the world. They determine how you make your life decisions; they shape our attitudes, our awareness, and our self-esteem. A healthy home life is a vital ingredient in the pursuit of a meaningful life.
Home is more than just a mere structure of architecture that is composed of walls and a roof, which we consider to be our shelter. It is supposed to be where we find tranquility and where we can feel like our most comfortable selves. What make a ‘house’ "home” are the simple actions of people, the love and affection they put in? A house is full of meaningless objects; a home is filled with memories. There is a reason why, we say, 'home town, 'home land or home country' it’s the feeling of belongingness that one comes from home.
A house can never be a home because it is just a structure you live under but a home can be anywhere. Home is vital to human beings as it's always with you when you are happy, sad and angry or excited; it is here where you spend your best moments. Home is where you eat, sleep, work and play. It’s where you get loved. It is defined by memories, contents and people as much as it is by physical form. It is an evolving idea that continues to change as memories and inhabitants come and go.
Different parts of the world have very different inclinations towards building a house. In the United States, the predominant method in constructing a house is timber-framed construction, where structural timber is used for the load-bearing part of the walls. In the United Kingdom, masonry construction, also known as brick and block construction, has been the method traditionally used, but timber-framed construction is currently the fastest growing construction method. However, in India, bricks and mortar are used widely to build houses. Though, whatever maybe the size or construction of a house, it is still called a house, not home. It is partly the name and the function that unites houses and homes across the world, rather than their structure.
Today we have interesting and unique houses from around the world, from cave dwellings and tree houses to soccer-ball-shaped shelters, toilet-shaped homes, and portable domiciles. There is a toilet-shaped house, Haewoojae; which means the house for satisfying one's anxiety, in Suwon, south of Seoul. South Korean sanitation activists marked the start of a global toilet association by lifting the lid on the world's first lavatory-shaped home that offers plenty of water closet space. However unique or weird these buildings or houses may be, still they are living spaces for people and called a 'home’. As home is not defined by the architectural structure rather it is the reflection of people living there.
In India, home is also associated with religious practices to remarkable degree and this fact is abundantly evident. Religious images are found in many rooms in the house, often integrated with images of deceased loved ones. Homes may feature religious pictures, small or larger brass oil lamps with a cross on top (a variation on the brass oil lamps ubiquitous in Hindu homes) and dedicated shrines with a whole array of images on a tabletop or wall. Many families gather to pray together in the evening, often with a scripture reading, before or after dinner.
Also, a home represents more than financial assets; they have a deep and unique emotional meaning. One of the earliest memories of home is often connected to childhood. The importance of the home environment is something that has been acknowledged as vital to a child's learning and development. For better or worse, they also represent the success of one's parent. Homes are an outward expression of family wealth, providing comfort, safety and a sense of community. But as much as we define them, our homes also define us. There is a popular quote "Home Sweet Home”, which portrays home as a place where people are able to go back, relax and cherish each and every moment.
An important sense of who you are and where you belong, where you will always have a place to call home is build by family and the bond that comes from family. Everyone has different family experiences. Some families work very coherently, whereas some families have a love amongst their chaos. Some families have the whole unit but don't work and some have an incomplete unit but work wonderfully. Families differ in the degree to which they reorganize themselves and their living spaces to accommodate care for each member, with different tolerance and strategies to minimize any disorder.
Nonetheless, the definition of home varies for different people. Many a times the places one may consider home aren't even places where they have immediate family, nor where they currently reside, or where they grew up. Instead, home might be a bookstore full of shelves stocked with classics and modern publications, a coffee shop where you're most able to zone in on work or the place where you and your friends get together when you feel bored.
It may be the dirt pathway through the park where one takes their morning walk each day, the cycle they take out on the road when the weather permits or the track where one pushes them to do better than last time. Home is where everything sort of clicks and where weight can be temporarily lifted from your shoulders, even if for a few hours.
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