People  in the  USA seem  to be  obsessed with  square feet.
That,  and "moving  up."  We seem  to arbitrarily  associate
larger  domiciles- even  the grotesquely  large- with  human
advancement. Efficiency,  beauty, convenience;  these things
take  a back  seat to  raw square  footage in  many people's
minds, it seems to me.

I  won't give  the  example I  started  typing, because  you
might find  out that  I'm a  frail, proud,  opinionated, and
judgmental human  being. You might  already know that.  I do
have examples though, honestly, that prove quite empirically
that USA humans (at the very least) are obsessed with square
feet and moving up.

This is coming to my  mind because we're looking at possibly
buying a  different house  in the  near future.  Our current
house is  2000 square  feet, which is  a suitable  number of
square feet for  the average spoiled American  I think. Like
corporations  or  government  entities  that  believe  their
previous budget must only ever be exceeded, many people seem
to believe that their previous square feet must only ever be
exceeded. I don't think this way.

What I  want to do, my  aspiration, is to take  a zero-based
budget  type  of  approach  to my  next  abode[1].  I'm  not
interested  in  minimizing my  square  feet,  which is  just
another way  to be  fascinated with  square feet  instead of
focusing on other aspects of  a living space; a reverse sort
of  pride. I'm  not interested  in  having more  than I  had
previously, nor do  I feel entitled to that. I  just want to
look at  what I  can afford, and  within that  hard boundary
find something  that I can  purchase in  cash that can  be a
home.

When I say  "what I can afford,"  I mean to wrap  up a whole
slew of ideas in a crafty and underhanded way; but since I'm
telling you about  it anyway, I don't feel too  bad about my
deception.

By "afford" I mean a few things: There's the currency of the
state, which I'll use to barter with another human for their
dwelling; there's the currency of my mental health, which in
my  case demands  being  not  too close  to  too many  other
humans; there's the currency of  my family's needs, who must
necessarily coexist  with me  but who have  vastly different
desires  and their  own  mental currency;  and, there's  the
currency  of society's  tolerance for  the way  I choose  to
live, which includes laws and ordinances and other things.

You can see, I hope, that "what I can afford" entails a wide
swath of criteria. I have to look at a lot of data to figure
out what to  budget in all of those  various currencies. I'm
not looking for pity, I just  wanted you to know that it was
hard.

And square feet have almost nothing to do with it.

The reason that I felt the need  to get this off my chest, I
think, is that I already feel alien in the social world that
I exist in. Wanting  to move the way I am  doing it makes me
feel  even more  so.  People  ask me  about  the houses  I'm
looking at, and  then their eyes glaze over  and their brows
furrow, belying their bewilderment.

I want  to write more, but  it's breakfast time and  I'm the
cook today.  I must  go... hopefully  I can  write something
less disjointed another time.

[1] gopher://gopherpedia.com:70/0/Zero-based budgeting