"The Street is for Celebration"

Passage:
"A city is something you do with space.

A street is a space. A building is an enclosed space. A room is a small enclosed space.

A city is made up of rooms, buildings, streets. It is a crowd of occupied spaces. Occupied or inhabited? Filled or lived in?

The way the buildings are lived in. And what goes on in the streets."

Pg#: 46

Commentary [Reflection]:
I feel as if Merton could write about anything. The expanse of his style is impressive. This is the beginning of his commentary on unity, habitation, and love within the world's most ubiquitous framework of civilization, the city.
The first six sentences are truths, common ground (axioms), that everyone can stand on. The nuances in meanings that Merton then plays on are whether or not these spaces are occupied- like a bathroom or a hotel, or inhabitated- like a fishbowl or a neanderthal's cave; in essence, filled or live in.

And what is he trying to say here?

That it is not simply enough for something to function as something else, that the way in which things are done is just as important as what is done. Are these city-dwellers a community or a conglomeration of private, separate lives? This will determine whether or not the "street is for celebration."

#35