One should never underestimate the psychological factors involved where the pros and cons of property owning are concerned. They lie embedded in the unconscious memory of humankind.

For thousands of years, humans struggled to survive the harshness of nature. Extreme heat, extreme cold, floods, and droughts. Too much rain when it wasn’t needed, nothing, when the days of survival started to become less and less. Pain, hunger, death, and loss of dear ones resulted.

Humans, furthermore, had to fight their own kind too in the ongoing process of survival. Deep down in the psyche (integrally connected to all of one’s cells), there is a remembrance of the struggling of primitive being to survive. That raw developing being had no one else but the self to force forward. He/she/it took no prisoners, did not have the capacity to consider kindness or feel empathy.

At some stage during that ice age of the human heart, the more clever beings started to realize that there is strength in numbers. As a pack there was a much better chance to subdue other beings that rivaled their quest for a better life. The assets of the losers were confiscated, their women were taken and their caves near rivers where game came to graze and drink water, became their prized possession in the process of bettering oneself in life.

Deep down we humans remember those fierce times of survival. Today we have become more sophisticated but the process of bettering one’s own position to the detriment of the weaker ones continues. The hard learned primitive skills are still there. There are winners and losers. The haves and have-not’s.

Humans are therefore programmed to find themselves a secure base to build a home where one can safely live. A place to find happiness, where one can relax and let your guard down. A place to come home to.

The passing centuries worked hard to evolve the human spirit. First we worked/fought together with other beings just for the benefit of the combined power. But, slowly we started to learn to feel empathy. First with direct family, then (weaker on a scale of intensity) with the direct community that resembles us, then (even weaker), with others that are geographically related to us. The centuries still have a lot of work to do to spread the gene of kindness.

So we have to continue our quest for safe havens; to find our impregnable castles. We will live in a shack and be happy to be out of the wind, heat and rain. But after a while the warring gene will lead us further to get to a more comfortable cave. An apartment or house of bricks and mortar. It will for sure be more costly than the previous dwelling, but it will for sure be safer, and healthier and will get you the admiration of those that you need to continue the upward struggle.

Along the way you start to realize the value of property. In the same manner that you are prepared to pay up for a better situated property, other people are prepared to pay-up for your property (the inflation of the hungry spirit!) One also starts to realize the value of holding on to property. A comfortable cave, nicely situated, will be worth more and more in time. And because there are (and will be for a very long time) people who cannot afford to buy their own little safe ground, they will pay handsomely to stay in your property to be out of the rain, wind and heat.

But they will most likely work very hard in order to one day in the future join the corps of property owners. Although more happy than unhappy, they realize that their position in the feeding chain is precarious. Landlords can mess around with tenants and will want more and more money to fund their quest for moving up in the chain. Other potential tenants, wanting to get into your relatively safe cave, might just be prepared to pay up for that luxury. And more importantly, you can see on the faces of the wealthier warriors that you don’t really count, and should a new war break out, you know that they will not come charging to back you up.

So, it is all about searching for caves, fighting for caves, castling your cave and the yearning to leave all caves for an impenetrable castle.

Wim van der Walt
23 April 2007