College life is volatile. It begins with being torn away from the places and people you know and ends by tossing you into a world without the structure and guidance you’ve come to depend upon over 18 years of schooling. In the interim four years, your schedule is dictated by the caprices of the dean’s office, your professors, your boss and other students whose lives are more hectic than your own. Flexibility and adaptability become cardinal virtues. Phrases like “staying up too late” and “getting up too early” cease to have meaning, you learn to live consistently outside of your comfort zone.
There is an instinct to seek some sort of stability in life. At college, the lone sanctuary most of us have is one small room in an apartment or house, and even that space is often shared. The most stable thing most of us have is a bed. The bed is a constant; it stays exactly as we left it, and we can make it up however we like. Perhaps more importantly, it’s the place we stay when we are most vulnerable—during our sleep—and it remains sacrosanct from intrusion (at least as long as we want it to). Nights in different beds can be long. Even though it’s an inanimate object, we afford it a special intimacy and endow it with a subconscious trust. No one ever speaks ill of his or her bed as long as it stays upright.
I’ve had five different beds I’ve called “my own” in the past year. That covers stints in Village C East, Nevils, Pennsylvania, Burleith, and Village A. None of my stays in these beds were long. While moving is a pain, it has never bothered me, and in a way I’ve come to expect a change of scenery more frequently than I should. Still, nothing takes the place of settling into that unique rapport with a bed. Lacking that lingering comfort left me more tense than usual, and no outlet I tried—extra time at Yates being the prime one—filled that void.
While maybe I react a little more dramatically than most, I believe seeking out a small, intimate comfort zone is a human instinct, and holds greater implications than a good night’s rest. Writ large, the “bed theory” can explain facets of collective human sentiment and behavior. With the five-year anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks just past us, a look at America’s collective response to September 11th provides a perfect example.
For more than 40 years, the American people and policy makers knew their “comfort zone.” We knew where the lone threat was (Russia), and while the Cold War was definitely rife with intense and terrifying moments, the basic American understanding of the world was secure. Nominally a clash between economic systems, the Cold War transcended economics and became about what people and societies valued more. With room for protest and dissent, American values were not in question. It was a comfortable bed.
Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, America was able to maintain its “bed” rent-free. The outlook on world affairs did not change. It was not until September 11th, 2001 that we found ourselves in a strange world, a strange situation, a strange bed. Entities other than countries became threats, we no longer knew which norms to follow.
We haphazardly stumbled into war, drawing from the national sense of disorientation and tension. We struggled to look for something familiar in a world where threats to our security seem more real and less predictable. It was a poor choice, and now Americans and Iraqis are paying the consequences. We need to realize that we don’t sleep in our old “bed” anymore, and take a positive approach toward finding a new one in the terrorist age.
We never should have expected to remain between the same sheets forever, just like I should not get so strung out about not having a steady bed for a year. The human push toward core stability almost certainly will find us with a new bed sooner or later. And the inexorable flow of time will put me on the same mattress for more than three months at some point. As I prepare to go abroad next semester, though, it becomes a little nerve-wracking to think about how soon both of these will occur.
