When a Philosopher Father Misses His Family

What Does It Mean To Be "Close" To Someone?

There’s a well-known saying that distance makes the heart grow fonder. 

It’s a feeling that I’m sure everyone will immediately recognise: that time spent away from a loved one increases your positive feelings toward them. In our absence we carry with us an idea of our loved ones, which stands in for them, and our relation to them, and which calls us back toward them.

On a couple of recent trips away from my wife and children, I was reminded of this sentiment, which may well be clichéd but is no less true for all that.

Reflecting on this common feeling it strikes me that, looked at rightly, it also contains something curious. At first glance the notion of being distant from someone seems to make intuitive sense – but thinking on it for a moment takes us in a more puzzling direction.

What is distance?

We all have a common and shared understanding of what distance is, which is the same one we draw on when we say things like ‘distance makes the heart grow fonder’.

This common understanding is that distance refers to the measured space between two objects. For example, when I was away from my family, the distance between us was about 400 miles. At play here is, essentially, a mathematical understanding of distance. It presupposes that space is a physical dimension that lends itself to quantification, to be measured in whatever units we happen to prefer: the imperial system, the metric system, or the countless local systems of measurement that existed before the global spread of the former. 

This is all very familiar – but it isn’t the whole story. To see why let's look at another everyday example: say, the distance between me and a shop I’m walking toward. The shop is twenty metres away – certainly far further away, mathematically speaking, than the lamp post inches to my right. But is it really correct to say that the shop is at a greater distance from me than the lamp post? Or would it be more accurate to say that the shop, which occupies my thoughts, is, in fact, closer to me than the lamp post, which I stroll past without noticing?

Two senses of space

Image: Maurice Merleau-Ponty, macroscopio.blogspot.com

The apparent contradiction at work here can be explained by two different understandings of space. The great French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty called these objective space and lived space.

Objective space is the kind already mentioned: space understood as a physical dimension that is mathematically measurable. Lived space is quite different, however, as it’s an existential rather than a physical phenomenon. More specifically, it’s part of the projection toward the world that each of us constantly carries out through our embodied acts.

This sounds complicated, but according to Merleau-Ponty, it’s only tricky to grasp because we spend our entire lives overlooking it. In fact, he says, “being-toward-the-world” is the basic mode of our existence – but noticing it is nevertheless something of an art.

First of all, we need to learn to see our body in its most fundamental mode. For each of us, our body is not just another object in the world, like teacups and bookshelves and raindrops, but is instead the source of our engagement with the world. 

My body, as I live through it, involves me partly habitually and partly intentionally, projecting outwards towards things and people. I walk to the shop to buy some milk, pick up the pen to jot down some notes, and call my dog over to pat her on the head. All of these projected acts are determined by the possibilities of my body, which forms a largely taken-for-granted background whenever I think about or do anything. Our body is even ‘there,’ Merleau-Ponty says when we imagine or recall doing things, as its possibilities structure what is envisioned and thereby bestow sense on them.

Lived space

Now, what has this got to do with space and distance?

Merleau-Ponty observes that space is one core aspect of our bodily projections.  Crucially, however, this is not the objective space that lends itself to mathematical quantification but instead the existential (and therefore more fundamental) notion of lived space.

Lived space is what I exist into. When walking to the shop to buy some milk – that is, going from here to there – my being-towards-the-world has an irreducibly spatial dimension. I project outwards and towards the world, which is structured for me accordingly: the shop that I’m heading towards is over there, other people are walking alongside me, whereas the lamp post I walk past without noticing is, in a way, not there for me at all. 

This is how it can be possible for the shop to be closer to me than the lamp post immediately to my right: in terms of lived space, rather than objective space, distances can take on a very different meaning.

Overcoming distance

All of this sheds light on what it means to be close to or distant from loved ones. Indeed, the above implies that we can even be close and distant at the same time.

For instance, we can live with someone but pay them insufficient attention. This could manifest as not thinking about them, not asking after their day, or being distracted and not fully listening when they reply. In this case, although we may well be close to them in terms of objective space, there would remain a gulf between us in terms of lived space since they are not there for me, structuring the world. In other words, they would be near and yet distant at the same time – an unhealthy combination for most familial, romantic, and friendly relationships.

By contrast, it’s perfectly possible to be distant from someone in terms of objective space and yet remain close to them in terms of lived space. I don’t mean by speaking to them over the phone – although perhaps that would be one possibility – but rather by holding them in our thoughts, wishing them well, and maybe trying to be the person we are when they’re with us. 

Of course, if left uncommunicated, this being-with in lived space would probably be insufficient; the other person would surely wish to know that they are being thought of. Nevertheless, being close in lived space is a good way to become close in objective space: as when, apart from my family, I began to miss them and, as a result, started the journey back home. 

In a way, then, maybe the true meaning of the phrase ‘distance makes the heart grow fonder’ is this: that objective distance from a loved one can bring us closer to them in lived space as we miss them—and in turn, becoming close to them in lived space can serve as a spur, drawing us back to them in objective space.