Some of us may think of home simply as the physical place that we live – perhaps a functional place where we can best meet our physical daily needs. For others perhaps it might be more of a feeling – perhaps related to being safe, secure, or where one can be themselves.

I can appreciate both of those ideas of home, with where I grew up, Croydon, just about scraping through on both counts. However, what defines home for me, and this is where Croydon, like almost all places, fails hard, is in an absence of manipulation…

The first inkling for this idea of home as the ‘absence of manipulation’ came many years ago when I first encountered The Pennine Way. The Pennine Way is Britain’s oldest, long distance walking path that runs from Edale in the Peak District, just to the East of Manchester, to Kirk Yetholm in Scotland.

I’m back on that path now as I make my way south on foot from Edinburgh to Croydon. I’m currently in Bellingham trying to dry out. I’ve been thinking since being on the path back to how my understanding of home as being the absence of manipulation came about.

The first inklings of what a home should have

I never attempted to put down roots when I lived in Manchester back in 2012. I knew that once my job came to an end later that year I would leave. Manchester made some pass for a home – in the meeting physical needs and safety senses – but like all cities, there were distractions – things to do, people to see, and places to go – and all of them seemingly needing to happen now or yesterday. I would often feel anxious and unworthy at not being able to meet expectations around all the seeing, doing, and going. But that, I now recognise with great sadness, is the point of many of our day-to-day spaces. When we feel anxious and unworthy, we are much more likely to do, see, and go!

But back then I didn’t recognise that a lot of the anxiety and low self-esteem I felt arose simply because of the spaces I frequented. Let alone did I suspect that the spaces might have been contrived to draw out such feelings within me. No, quite innocently and painfully, I came to believe that it was something to do with my personal functioning and that there was something faulty with me.

It was when I made my first escape to the east of the city where the hills started to roll that I came into contact with a different side of myself. It was an easy train ride from the city to Edale, which is where the Pennine Way begins/ends. And when I got up into the hills around there, I felt an unrivalled peace within. Out there, I was at my best, and as I now realise, I’ve always been at my best even when I’m making mistakes that I’ve been set up to make.

What is Their Agenda?

Hills don’t have any agenda other than to just be hills. All I’ve ever had to do when I go to the hills is to bring myself exactly as I am. I have to work with whatever I am given – be it howling winds, revitalising downpours, and the occasional sun-soaked face. Some reliable equipment helps, but that’s on me, not the hills. There is no deceit. Ultimately, nature has to be accepted and revered for what it is, frustrating as the experience might sometimes be. Any difficulty that I’ve had out in the wild has only helped with the process of accepting myself for everything that I am too.

The main problem I had back then, with all that time unmolested in the hills to the east of Manchester, was how I felt when I returned. It became clear that back in the city there were all manner of surreptitious schemes to get me to do things that weren’t in my best interests. The presence of manipulation in our day-to-day lives is most evident in commercial spaces, where everything, and I mean everything, has been crafted in a manner to get us to spend as much money as possible. And this is regardless of whether it is genuinely good for us or not. From the layout of shops right up to the way things are displayed and priced.

And not just obvious stuff like necessities in supermarkets placed at the furthest ends of the shop, hard to notice small print, or stuff flashing in our faces begging to be looked at and distract us from our internal beauty, but deceptive psychological tricks that are barely perceptible to the conscious mind. For example, making an expensive thing look inexpensive, just by arranging it with really expensive things. Or by making something appear scarce when it is not. Or when we feel like we are getting something free or discounted when it is still a hefty markup. Or perhaps appealing to our deeper fears of being unlovable. 

Fair Game

And very curiously, what I was experiencing and becoming aware of at this time in my life, was tying in with the direction of my work in Manchester. Alongside my happiness research, I was beginning to explore psychological biases in our decision making. Natural decision making bias we’re all prone to and can be encouraged (or, heaven forbid, even prevented) into making.

The sad thing is that preying on our psychological weakness is considered fair game. It’s just regular marketing and our wellbeing, despite any product claims, is a complete irrelevance in such spaces. If something hurts/boosts sales then that technique will be adopted, celebrated, and become ubiquitous. That’s not to say there isn’t genuinely life enriching stuff out there, but it’s hard to discern because we’ve reached a time and place in society where if a business doesn’t engage in manipulation they are unlikely to survive. And so, with all this manipulation in place it is no surprise we regularly make poor choices that do not serve our health and happiness.

How did it get like this? When did it become acceptable to mislead people? And with such intensity? Maybe it has always been this way. What choice do we really have when in the background someone is doing everything they can to manipulate the choice contex to their advantage? It’s my belief that the healthy-happy choice should be easy, and if it is not, then our spaces should be designed to make it easier. Even with the best intentions and souped up awareness of the state and true intention of our spaces, we can still go astray. I know I do, and far too often. Why, as a society, do we invest so much energy into manipulating and cajoling people?

And then the real tragedy is that those that fall for the traps get blamed and judged for doing so. Like it is completely their fault, and that they had free choice. Yeah right, free choice, that’s complete misnomer. In fact, might the narrative around free choice be the greatest manipulation of our times. 

Where is genuinely safe?

Public spaces aren’t safe from manipulation either – far from it. Even sitting outside in a park, perhaps under a tree, it is difficult not to notice something flashing in the distance, enticing me to put down my book and come over and spend. And then, as I’m walking along the street, there’ll be an oversized somebody smiling, laughing, leering, at me because I don’t have the look or latest thing, they have been paid to look like they have.

I’m not even going to get into the virtual world for now, as that unhappiness hell hole that has used big data to turn manipulation from an art into a science, is for another blog post later in my journey. And besides, in 2012 when I was living in Manchester, I was intuitively resistant of having internet in my home which, since I also didn’t then have a TV, at least meant my home space was largely protected from manipulation. Which goes to say, lucky is the person who lives in a home where there is an absence of manipulation from those they live with. Where at least one person or another is trying to bend day-to-day affairs to their own will in underhand ways. Just like the public spaces we frequent, we might not notice the manipulation, especially if it is there all the time. I’ve been thinking about all of that too as I journey south, recognising that as difficult as growing up in Croydon was, I wasn’t even safe from manipulation where I slept and bathed.

But then, if we live in a society where so many of our public spaces are manipulative, then doesn’t manipulation become present in the mindset of its people too. In our day to day dealings with one another. We may conceal our real intentions and do what we can to get one up on our fellow humans. It’s raw survival. But it’s far from fulfilling. At least I’ve not found it to be so, and it’s been a long road to find a better way. And there is a better way, that brings deeper fulfilment. I have it far from fully worked out yet, but awareness is the first step, and that’s helped me be more mindful of my own choices. There is a lot to be said in erring for a more simple life. We also need to be honest with ourselves and iron out our own manipulative behaviours, which isn’t easy but does lead to better relationships and more happiness. But ultimately we need to question and repurpose what our public spaces are for – is it profit or people? I know what most would want. But it will be a long and difficult journey.

***I’m currently journeying from Edinburgh to Croydon on foot and this blog is part of that journey. I’m not into social media, but if you’d like to find out more or keep tabs on how I’m getting on, then check out this page.