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No, I don’t think it is weird that many “spots” coexist on a large, mostly round and Earth. It seems normal in this reality we live in.
Now, I have pondered how places become sacred to humans. And even though I am a practicing Christian, I have to believe that sacred spaces and places gain their holiness from how humans regard them. Places might have been sites of special, memorable occurrences and so, have been regarded as sacred, or terrible places afterwards.
But in all honesty I don’t understand your definition of being “weird.” Is your feleling more to do with time than geography? Or something else?
In particular, I am fascinated by the fact that because we all have individual relationships with places we have encountered throughout our lives, these places carry very different meanings for us all.
For example, I think about the magnolia tree I used to perch in while waiting for my dad to come out of the locker room for us to go swimming in the outdoor pool at our university campus. A beloved memory for me.
I have often thought about that tree - did other kids climb it? Is it still there? How would my experience have been different without such a tree? Does anyone else remember the same tree? My sister remembers the tree - but I don't think it has quite the same meaning for her. What did the tree really mean for me that I am still thinking about it, 60 years later?
I can recreate the experience of waiting in that tree within about three seconds by simply closing my eyes. Does it really matter if the tree may no longer exist?
I get the timeist vibe (I get to make up words, too) when I see things like petroglyphs or Victorian graffiti. Others stood here long ago, and wanted to leave a record of their visit.
I've taken to carrying spray paint so I can add to the history of these places. I like to imagine someone decades from now being as awed by my contribution as I am by that of ancient peoples.
Yes, I'm kidding about the spray paint. It wouldn't last that well anyway.
I have thought about this but from the perspective of my individual significance vs. not being significant. For example, my significance in the spot/home/setting I am in at this moment vs. a place where I am not even relevant. You can think of it from a philosophical perspective as well. Here on Earth I exist, compared to the Universe as a whole. Or alive vs. dead.
I've done the same thing, there is a forest preserve in the south suburbs of Chicago, that contains the atomic pile that was proven to work under the University of Chicago bleachers in the early 1940's, it was the site of the first "Argonne Labs". I walk the same road going in, that "the big brains" walked during that time, I have to wonder if I haven't walked in the same footsteps as Enrico Fermi, or even Oppenheimer, if they ever visited that site.
But to bend your mind a little further, and contradict what you (and I) just said: That pile of rocks you create in the woods near your home is NOT in the same spot it was when you made it. Because the earth is rotating on its axis, and at the same time revolving around our sun, and the sun exists in an ever-expanding universe, nothing is in the "same place" for even a microsecond. It may be "Relative to the earth itself", but if you remove that frame of reference, those rocks are tens of thousands of miles away from where you piled them every time you see them. I'm pretty sure someone way smarter than I am might chime in and explain that's the only reason "Time" can exist, but for me that's just a hunch, I don't understand the science on it.
We are like drops of water waving about. In one spot a loved one is buried and in another, a new life is born. Borrowing the terminology is spottist timeframe...if you will. When I return to areas where I lived before. The scents are the same, the sights are mostly the same, but the culture and interactions are all different. It is being so close to a spot, knowing it was here when you were last left it, but it is now gone. Whether cherished or painful, it is gone. And they all change, some slower than others. Those spots are moments. They cannot be captured. They are either acknowledged, or not. It may be our most important purpose, in acknowledging one another.
I think this concept also fascinates me historically too, like "this exact spot existed in 1989 / 1070 BC / 15,000 years ago, etc." Isn't it weird that you can stand where historical figures once stood?
I wouldn't call it "weird" but I do think it's something to stop and think about from time to time.
The first time I can remember thinking about the history of a certain spot was when I visited the Tower of London. You can visit the towers where prisoners were held and you can stand where royals and others were beheaded.
I also think about the woods behind my house, where the Minsi Indians once hunted and where wolves and mountain lions once prowled. Up on my mountain you can go back even farther when you unearth fossils of sea creatures.
I don't know if I understand exactly what you're saying, OP, but I'm always fascinated by people's takes on reality. Maybe surrounding what you're referring to, I do sometimes get a little awestruck thinking about how small my world I experience is. I'm sitting in an office in downstate Illinois. I work in a semi rural county that's part of a fairly large metropolitan area. We're working, but with a much reduced staff so there are only 2 other people on this floor in a roughly 2000 sq. foot office space. Another 2 on the 2000 square ft floor below me. I was on a sensitive phone call a moment ago so my door is closed and I have a fan running. I can't see or hear either of my co-workers on this floor and the ones downstairs are even more distant. Just me in this office with the fan whirring and some faint sounds that may or may not be my coworkers moving about. I am pretty much alone in a real sense, in my awareness. Looking at this screen as I type, the "world", whatever world is out there, seems behind me.
The world is back there doing its thing, though. All the activity taking place all around me. I can't sense it, but I know there are other people here, and another 10 or so at various parts of our 50 acre complex. And all the homes and businesses I drove past this morning are still there, with people doing what they do with no need for me to witness. And I drove over one of several east west roads to get here, with each cutting through people's lives. Across the river that separates the metro area I live in, even more is happening. And in every decent sized metro area there's an enterprise or 5 like ours and like all the diverse enterprises and people around me. In every state and country, and on pretty much each continent. Full of real people I'll never meet or even see who think of me as part of the world outside their awareness, if they think of me at all.
I think it's fashionable to think like this and to say one feels insignificant, but I don't really. I Actually feel a part of something vast, and how much a part doesn't really concern me. I am awestruck, and even more so if I think about time and what this place has been while I've been here and the people who have come and gone, and what this social service agency was before I arrived, what these building's lives were before a social service agency operated here and the stories they could tell about the young Air Force personnel stationed here, and what the land held before there were buildings on it, before it was farmland, before people were here at all. It's kind of dizzying.
I don't really get why you call it spotism. This is typical travelling and thinking of the past :P
But yeah i've also been in that position.
I agree. The OP is describing perfectly normal thoughts and feelings that most people who have a normal IQ and curiosity experience on a daily basis. Nothing weird or unique about it that requires a name. Sometimes that sense of a place's history is stronger for some people who can imagine themselves in that place at other times in history. I've felt that way when visiting old ruins, or cathedrals and castles. Maybe some people just have a more active imagination. I have relatives and friends and some live or travel all over the world, and I often think of where they are, or what they're doing at any moment, versus what I am doing at the same moment. It's an interesting thought that they might be sitting in a cafe in Paris, while I'm doing the dishes at home, or maybe I'm sitting on the balcony on a cruise ship watching the sun set, and they are a half a world away, just getting out of bed and feeding the animals on their farm. That's just how life is.
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