Directionally-Specific Claustrophobia

by ANDY BOZEMAN

This story isn't intended to be funny, but it is interesting.

Whenever a claustrophobic client is encountered, conventional wisdom says, "every room has to be huge." But I've learned to say, "You're claustrophobic? Which way?"

Throughout my four decade long career as a home designer, I've encountered many people with a special condition, claustrophobia, which is a critical issue when designing a home. Imagine living in a house that causes anxiety in every room and around every corner, with no safe place to go, anytime, .........ever.

I'm not a trained psychological expert, but my experience does allow me to make some basic observations. Claustrophobia is very often "directional." People sense their surroundings in different ways, to different degrees, and in specific directions. Some people fear the feeling of being confined overhead, such as a low ceiling. Others feel the oppression from the side, or front, or back. By investigating, understanding, and concentrating on the direction of anxiety, it becomes a simple task to concentrate on the directions that matter, and exclude the directions that don't. An important factor is to determine if the phobia concerns a single direction, multiple directions, or all directions.

• As an aside, there's one more category to consider - none of the above. For people who fear getting into an elevator, it's very often not the confined space of the elevator, but the fear that the elevator will fall. So there. With that one sentence, for thousands of readers, I've healed the fear of confinement, but replaced it with the fear of falling. It's not easy being "mental." Now, back to c-phobia.

My very basic definition of claustrophobia is : A sense of the impending force of a possible attack, whether physical or emotional, that instills a desperate need to escape.

My observation that c-phobia is directional helps me design homes that remove or reduce the sense of impending attack from a specific direction, thus reducing the clients need to escape. I don't know any technical terms, so I've created some of my own. They sound like a joke, but I seriously use them to define the direction of claustrophobia suffered by a client.

Claustro-head-a-phobia : The fear of being attacked from above. Low ceilings or low-hanging objects instill the fear of running into something, being caught in a collapse, or attacked by "something" from above. The other side of this is ceilings that are too tall or harbor shadows from which danger could spring.

Claustro-feet-a-phobia : The fear of tripping or being grabbed by the feet. A floor cluttered with such objects as potted plants, tables and chairs in a restaurant, multiple scattered and layered rugs, even a complex pattern in the design of the floor itself, causes the need to be separated from the area confined by the objects.

Claustro-torso-phobia : The fear of being confined at the chest, shoulders and arms. Examples are : Stores with tall display cases, chest-high clothing racks, rooms decorated with shoulder-high plants, closet and cabinet doors that "invade" a person's space as the doors swing open.

Claustro-front-a-phobia: The fear of too little space to move and too little air to breathe directly in front, such as standing between rows of clothes in a narrow walk-in closet.

Claustro-back-a-phobia : The fear that an attack can come from the back, making it necessary to constantly monitor the area behind the sufferer, even in the person's own house, where danger lurks around every corner and within every shadow; or to sit back-against-the-wall, so nothing can be behind the sufferer.

Claustro-left-a-phobia and Claustro-right-a-phobia : The sense of danger from a specific side, left or right. I haven't been able to find evidence to suggest that right handed people are more often right-a-phobic, or that the converse is true. My observation has been that people who are "side"-a-phobic fear danger specifically from the left or right. I try to make sure that there are plenty of open spaces such as arches and windows to relieve the stress from the left or right.

Never try to save a customer from claustrophobia. The sensations and anxieties they fear are as real to them as you are to yourself. Instead, listen, observe, and try to understand the directionallity of the phobia. Sometimes, if you can uncover the direction of the fear, it can enlighten the customer by revealing the source, and instill relief by the realization that the oppressive force isn't all-surrounding. Then, you can design features in the house that address the actual fears for specific directions, like a wider aisle in a walk-in closet for a front-a-phobic, or by eliminating ceiling fans and chandeliers for a head-a-phobic. I have witnessed the life-changing relief that people feel when they make the personal discovery that danger doesn't exist on every side.

B-Learning along with E-Learning

by Andy Bozeman

It’s no secret. The people who can e-learn are the same ones who can…......just plain learn. 

If we look at four distinct times of existence, a startling fact emerges concerning who is able to learn:

• Past              Motivated students who knew how to learn


• Now              Motivated students who know how to learn


• Future           Motivated students who know how to learn


• Forever          Motivated students who know how to learn 

I’m all for devising remarkable ways to get information to the motivated students who already know how to learn. But I also want to concentrate on teaching more young people the basics of learning. No one can learn at the speed of light if they can’t grasp a printed word sitting still on a page.

Please join me in this process. Spend 95% of your time developing and disseminating light-speed learning processes. Spend 3% reinventing processes for basic learning (b-learning), such as reading from a printed page, and writing on a piece of paper, and doing arithmetic with a pencil or piece of chalk. Then spend 1% thinking about how to combine the two.

Don’t forget, we’re analog, not digital. We feel knowledge more than we absorb it. The sensation of holding a book, even an e-book device, creates a tactile connection, which becomes mental. Learning occurs through the senses – hand to eye to brain to hand. In my opinion, nothing will ever replace a piece of paper you can hold in your hand.

Did you notice that 1% is still missing? Here it is. Spend 1% of your time considering how to create motivated students. In all methods of education, bring back the old inspirational stories of morality and accountability, the stories that transcend religious biases, refute superstition, and  favor the uniquely human drive to be self-reliant, self-supporting, and self-fulfilled.

The greatest motivation comes when an individual realizes the connection between learning and living well. 

So, with combinations of b-learning and e-learning, let’s teach Living Well at Light Speed.

Who’s Talking About E-Learning?

I’ve never found it effective to teach with words like pedagogical, or pepper my lectures with phrases like Conversational Cognitive Model, and Neutral Contextual Behavioral Mode Perspective, and Environmental And Social Aspects Foci. But, every time I research anything about e-learning and e-teaching, most of the information I find is made up almost entirely of such words and phrases.

Of course, these vocabulations (It’s almost a real word) do mean something. But the people who do most of the talking about e-learning, the ones using such words, the only people who really understand them, are the ones who routinely say them…….. to each other. These types of words are for citizens of Academia, not the rest of us. And there's the rub. Or, maybe it's Contactual Ameliorating Manipulation.



Every industry and institution suffers the same fate. In every type of job, for individuals to standout from the crowd, for the cream to rise to the top, those who wish to be the cream must find better ways to show-off, or flaunt their abilities in comparison to their peers. However, at this point, the terms flaunt, cream, and poor judgment become equal.

For example, while channel surfing, I stumbled across one of those find-the-best-fashion-designer TV shows. One finalist was singled out for his submission, which was the most outlandish example of fabric-passing-for-clothes I’ve ever seen. The judges agreed. One of them said the most to-the-point, most widely applicable comment I've ever heard for our topic. She said to the contestant, “It’s obvious that you are so lost within the culture of fashion design, and you’re trying so hard to impress and out-do the other contestants, that you have completely forgotten your customers.”

Individuals, single entities, can school together to form a new entity, the group, or Cerebrationally Concurring Centristic Amalgamation. That group, in this case, is comprised of very well educated professionals of learning, who have become so focused on speaking to each other, that the object of their profession, the student, has been forgotten.

Therefore, when we talk about e-learning, I propose that we rededicate our efforts for the good of the student. Instead of pedagogical let’s say “about teachers and teaching.” Instead of Conversational Cognitive Model, let’s say, “find a way to say something so others can understand it.” And, when it comes to saying phrases like Neutral Contextual Behavioral Mode Perspective, and Environmental And Social Aspects Foci, ……well, ……let’s just don’t.

Afterall, which phrase works best : Vocabulistically Non-Academian Cognizance Inducing Socio-Intercoursional sans-Centric Mode, 

or Teach, so learning can happen?

The next E-Learning Minute will be: tba

Future Articles

Who's E-Learning?




E-Teaching Might be More Accurate

IF NO CHILD IS LEFT BEHIND, 

we're never gonna make it,

 because some of them refuse to go.

Alright Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.




Can You SEE What I'm Saying?

Real F2F E-Learning Styles

I have a web-cam. You have an iPhone.

We're meant for each other, right?



Come with me.......I have raspberries.




and much more.....

Way Out in the Country

Way out in the country, how many people does it take to go to the bathroom?

“OK. On ‘hup-two-hike’ you do a down & out towards the feed bin. Curl right and head for the pig trough. I’ll fade back, then sneak towards the out-house, where I’ll stop and use the bathroom. Then, we’ll run the play again, so you can go.”

It’s been years since going to the bathroom was treated like an athletic event, but that’s the way it had to be because the only access to the out-house was through the old chicken yard, and it was guarded by a fiercely territorial killer goose.

Out of necessity, going to the bathroom at an uncle’s farm was a family affair. Someone had to distract the goose so somebody else could “go.” Night time was the worst. The blasted beast never slept. It didn’t matter that it was pitch dark, because the goose had the yard memorized and could move fast in any direction.

Nobody wanted to go at night, but if it had to be, it was best not to go alone. That’s why the diversion plays were invented. If the goose could be distracted, the chicken yard could be safely crossed. Then, the little one-seat shack could be entered and used, but the diversion had to be repeated for a safe, un-pecked return. This procedure was required for every person who had to go, night or day.

A visiting cousin didn’t believe in the family’s theory of “safety-in-numbers.” Certain he could handle one little bird, he took an evening trip across the chicken yard for what would later become the legend of “Cousin Bob’s Midnight Run For The Privy.”

Wearing a nightshirt, cousin Bob entered the chicken yard, closed the gate, and disappeared into the night. It was too dark to see anything, but the noises told the story. Off to the left, a sudden flapping and slapping of wings and webbed feet signaled the start of the attack. Feathers rustled. Feet meant for water now beat the earth in a rapid, waddling rhythm that moved towards the center of the yard.

A sudden honk followed by a human shriek heralded the letting of first blood. Howling and honking, flapping of wings against nightshirt, slapping of arms against feathers revealed that the battle was engaged. The sounds of running feet- goose and human- moved in the dark towards the far side.

A door slammed.

Silence.

Cousin Bob shouted in the night, “I’m gonna stay for a minute, then you gotta get me out-a-here!”

The goose was so upset it took several diversion plays to get her away from the outhouse, but eventually Bob was rescued.

So, way out in the country, how many people does it take to go to the bathroom? It takes just one to go, but it could take a whole family to come back.

In America, modern indoor plumbing is only a little over a hundred years old. A European invention called the Trap meant that mankind could hear a new sound: gurgling water leaving the house.

There’s a Trap for every plumbing fixture. If you have indoor plumbing, you have many Traps. One is under the kitchen sink. Most people think it’s there to catch wedding rings that slip off in the dishwater. Actually the Trap fills with water and keeps sewer gas from entering the house.

Modern civilization owes it’s very nature to the Trap. It wouldn’t be practical to have shopping malls or huge sporting events or even super-churches where lots of people need water based facilities.

In honor of the Trap, which led to the development of the indoor out-house, I hereby establish the Andy Bozeman Zodiac and proclaim this year to be THE YEAR OF THE TOILET.

I call on everyone who has indoor plumbing to join me in this ritual: Print this article. Frame it and hang it above the toilet of your choice. Every time you jiggle the handle, recite the poem, and be thankful. Without the Trap we could still be subjected to a daily dose of out-house aroma, and maybe a thrilling chase through a chicken yard. Imagine that at a shopping mall.

I don’t miss the aroma but I do long for the youthful days, when I could outrun a goose.

Birthday Potty

by Andy Bozeman

Happy Birthday Little Pot.

You’re a thing I’m glad I’ve got.

Let’s skip the lovey-dovey mush,

‘Cause I just like you for your flush.

vvv

Tiger And The Tile Tale

I spent several childhood years living with my parents and sister in my grandmother’s house. The floors all over the house were wood, and they were kept waxed and polished and just slippery enough so a mid-sized cat could mimic a hockey puck.

My sister had a cat named Tiger. I found that if I ran through the kitchen past the cat’s favorite sleeping place dragging a rubber mouse tied to a piece of string, the cat would awake, jump up and chase the mouse. I would lead the chase through the den, down the hall and across the living room, where I would jerk the mouse onto the small rug by the front door as I took a sharp right turn into the front bedroom. (I was barefooted for better traction). The cat would see the mouse on the rug and without breaking stride, pounce full speed to make the capture. As soon as the cat’s weighted momentum made contact, the rug would absorb all of the inertia and, unhindered by friction (remember the highly polished floor?) skid the remaining few feet and slam the full force of the cat’s mass into the front door, finally coming to rest in a heap of carpet folds and cat fur. There was a moment when all was silent and motionless. Then, Tiger would slowly crawl out of the heap making no attempt to hide his embarrassment, while I stood grinning ear to ear and thinking “........Every time”.

The piece of that story I want you to remember is the folded rug. The door wouldn’t move, so the rug absorbed the shock by folding.

Here’s what started this whole topic. I saw a tile terrace located between a house and a massive, masonry garden wall. The tile was badly buckled, sort of folded like that rug with the cat on it. At the base of the brick wall, at each corner where the terrace met the house, were two wide cracks rising from the tile up the brick wall about sixteen inches. At first glance it appeared to be a foundation failure. But expansion was the culprit.

The tile had been placed directly against the brick wall of the house on one side, and the garden wall on the other. When summer temperatures soared to unseasonable highs, the tile expanded pushing against both the house and the garden wall. The garden wall was massive. It didn’t move at all, so the expansion pressure shifted toward the house. Brick is very strong vertically, but has less strength from side to side. That’s because brick walls on most houses are hollow. The brick cracked exactly at the points where pressure was applied by the expanding tile. Eventually the brick had moved as far as it could against the structure of the house. Trapped between the house and the garden wall, the still expanding tile began to buckle on itself.

Only one thing was needed to avoid this problem — room to expand. There’s a construction thing called an expansion joint. It’s nothing more than a gap that puts space between a material that will expand, and a material that won’t. If such a gap had been built-in with that tile terrace, it could have expanded as much as it needed without ever coming into contact with the house or the garden wall.

Other materials will behave in similar fashion. If wood or vinyl or tile are installed when it’s too cold or too dry, they will be in a contracted state. Then, as temperatures and humidity rise, those materials will begin to expand. If no room has been allowed, pressure will be forced against whatever is beside the material. Brick will break, wood floors will dome up, vinyl will ripple, tile will buckle and cat-rugs will fold..............every time.

vvv

TV DINNER CHRISTMAS

Christmas is a target for more than retail sales. It’s also a cut-off time. “We Just Have To Be In By Christmas” is the theme song for any family trying to build during late Summer and Fall. However, it’s only the cut-off time by default, because the last season, whose theme song was “We Just Have To Be In By Thanksgiving” came and went without enough of the house being finished to move in.

Ned (never his real name) was anxious to finish building. His family’s most recent Thanksgiving dinner had been served from little, toaster-oven heated, foil pans divided into small basins, each holding a single element of the season’s traditional feast. Turkey, dressing, gravy, and green peas were all separated by metallic barriers.

During the entire meal those silvery dividers constantly reminded Ned that he too was separated from the new home he had hoped to be in when he ate his Thanksgiving dinner. The worst part was desert. He had planned an authentic Baked Alaska, filled with homemade peppermint ice cream, covered with mountains of meringue, drizzled with raspberry liqueur, and set ablaze with imported rum. Instead, he used a flimsy plastic knife to crow-bar a lump of fruity cobbler-like substance from a compartment unwilling to yield it’s contents.

It was that despicable desert experience that pushed Ned over the edge. Without considering that he was clueless about construction, Ned pushed aside his contractor and took control of his housing destiny.

He only had to order the wood flooring, kitchen appliances, shrubs and topsoil, and just install everything. That was almost nothing.

As the reader, I can tell you that “almost nothing” is not a valid concept in construction. You don’t “just install” anything. That’s why there are professional specialists for everything from hauling dirt to sanding floors. That’s why there are building codes and inspectors. Nothing is ever simple. We are never safe from ourselves.

Ignorance was no deterrent for this man, now driven mad by an undefeatable desert. Ned no longer saw an order of events and inspections for the proper completion of his new home. All he could see now was Christmas dinner.

The heating contractor had delivered the furnace, but it wasn’t hooked up when a severe cold spell settled in to stay through the end of the year.

Oak planks were delivered and left stacked in the cold house. Ned would be the installer, but not now. Three weeks later he was proud of the wood floor he alone installed in an unheated house. Besides, those rough spots and splinters could be fixed.

The cold, dry air energized Ned. Anxious to achieve perfect flower beds , he was overly generous with topsoil and mulch, piling it extra-deep against the house.

The furnace was connected, the stove set in place, the floor was swept and the last layer of mulch was applied to the shrubs. Ned moved into his new home three full days before Christmas, just as the rain set in.

The cold, dry air may have invigorated Ned but it also shrank the planks. They got installed in a contracted state. When the heat was turned on and the rain was diverted into the house by the extra-deep topsoil, the wood began to expand, then buckle, then curl. Ned’s wood floor began to resemble the twists and turns of a thrill ride at an amusement park. He swallowed his pride and called everybody he knew for help. Nobody could come until after the holidays.

At least he was in the house and could have that fantasy feast. Then he realized that the electrician had never been called to connect the outlet for the stove. The electrician couldn’t come until after Christmas. Not knowing what to do next, he just waited for it to stop raining. It didn’t.

On the big day the family gathered for a Christmas morning fire but there was no firewood. Ned considered burning some of his curvy wood floor, but it was too wet.

Instead, the family gathered in the dining room, said the blessing and ate the finest traditional Christmas feast available in little, toaster-oven heated, foil pans. Then, Ned taught them a new theme song, “We’ve just Got To Get This Fixed By Easter.”

end