Why Do We Feel the Need to Fill Empty Spaces?

Learn to embrace the space…

Trisha Dunbar (She/Her)
4 min readAug 23, 2021
Photo by Steven Ungermann on Unsplash

Now I don’t know about you, but in general, I don’t understand us, humans. On one hand, we seem to crave space, but on the other hand, we have this insatiable urge to fill space with ‘stuff.

The question is why? Why do we have such an urge to fill our spaces? It doesn’t just seem to be an individual thing either. As groups, we like to fill spaces too.

Take my local council, for example. We need more roads to ease congestion so the farmer sold off some land and they are building a new road. However, they are not content with just leaving the surrounding green space, green.

They decided this space could fit about a thousand affordable shoe boxed sized homes. Now, this kind of defeats the point doesn’t it? This extra road is being created due to the fact we filled all our spaces with overpopulation.

The Normalising of Space-Filling

I am also a perfect example of our human need to fill space. I fill my physical spaces with books and furniture. Recently I found some space on a wall and do you know what I did? I bought a picture frame to fill it as it looked too empty.

Now it isn’t just physical space we need to fill. How often have you been in a…

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Trisha Dunbar (She/Her)

🧠 Sharing my journey #100daysof... challenges 💪 Fitness & Health 📖Reading for Growth | ✍ Writing for Self-Expression 🦣@trishadunbar@me.dm